Their Cards, My Game
by EmpressPyrus
Summary: The Reach was defeated, but left the team in pieces. They would need to go on with life, but with members missing, it would be easier said than done. This story will add characters like Donna Troy, Kyle Rayner, Stephanie Brown and Mia Dearden. Shippings are canon, and StephXTimXCass love triangle. Pole on account. Full summary inside.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

**_SUMMARY_: Gone. The Reach was defeated, but what about the Light? Greyson gone,West dead. What happens next? How will the team cope, and what will happen to the few seniors remaining ?The continue on with life, but when the past isn't as clear as it seems, they need to figure out the next step, and live with everything. A sudden blast from the past will change everything. When people come back to life, you realize the illusions of the the world. When your friends leave you, a lesson is learned. Very Wally and Dick centric, and tons of Tim action as well. The first 10-12 chapters will be pretty light, but after that the themes will get much darker, read with caution! Mostly, Sptifire and CassieXTimXStephaine (yes I'm adding her) with Dick romance later but not with OC.**

**Well, I am a really big fan of Young Justice and the fact that probably wont be a season got me thinking about this story. It takes place after season 2, and everything that happened in the show will happen, except Wally didnt die (I'm too big a fan to cut him out) It will have a lot of everyone, each chapter will be from a different charaters POV, but the bigger more important characters will get more chapters, aka, Wally, Dick, Artemis. I'm not a very big OC fan, but I wanted to try having one this time around, so there will be one but she will not really be that major, and she will be coming later in the story. **

**Disclaimer: I dont, and sadly will never own Young Justice. **

It was six in the morning, and I still had about half an hour to get up. I was lazily lying on my bed trying to block out the bits of light that were coming from the sides of the curtains. As I turned around, my cell phone started to ring indicating that I had just received a text message. Normally, I would have just ignored my phone, but today I just felt like it was important. I grabbed it off the sir table and as soon as I read the contents, I was suddenly awake.

"Holy shit," was all that I was able to say before dying to wake up Artemis who was laying next to me. Over the eight years we had been together, I had learned one very important lesson. Artemis was _not _a morning person. She absolutely _hated _getting up in the morning, and was well aware that I left her to herself before nine, so when I started vibrating the bed, she knew that something was wrong.

"What's the matter babe?" she asked in a tired and totally not fully awake tone. I shoved my cell-phone in her face wordlessly. She grabbed it from my vibrating had to see it better. As soon as she saw the contents she was just as awake as I was.

"Dammit, we've gotta go," she said and we both leaped into action. I ran into the bathroom and was out with a shower and fully dressed in less than a minute. As soon as I ran out, Artemis ran in.

I quickly grabbed some breakfast and as soon as she got out of the bathroom, she jumped on my back and i ran out the door at the speed of light. Something I hadn't done in three years. something I expected never to do again.

It had been over three years since the reach invasion. After that, many things had changed. For one, Artemis decided that she couldn't avoid that life any longer, so had re-joined the team, and then was accepted into the League. But now as Tigress, expert fighter in hand to hand combat instead of Artemis, archer. I hadn't been fully on board with the idea of her constantly risking her life, but had soon come to realize that other than me, that was all she really had in life. I was still retired, and hadn't used my sped for many years, giving the Kid Flash title to my younger much more enthusiastic cousin Bart who had proudly taken the title. My title. My legacy. Which I willingly given up for a regular life.

But there were still many changes that had happened. One of the good things was that Mal and Karen had tied the knot a year ago. They were the first ones to do it, and were celebrated by the League and team. But that also meant that they had both also retired. Two of the teams senior members, no longer fighting.

Then there was Connor and M'Gann. They had the weirdest relationship. After the invasion, and messed up mission with Aqualad, M'Gann had stopped using her powers to fry people's brains. That instantly got her and Connor seeing eye to eye again, but their trust in each other had to be healed in time. so they were friends for a while. Then they dated. Then they were friends again. Finally, now they were dating agin. No-one ever really knew what was going on with them, but we all just gave them the space and didn't ask any question.

The biggest change though had to have happened because of Dick. Right after the invasion, we were all happy. But when all of us were enjoying a day off, Dick had told Kaulder that he was taking a 'temporary' leave. Then he left. He didn't say goodbye to any of us, and just vanished, not to be seen or heard from for three years.

Rumor had it that Bats knew where he was, but Bruce denied any knowledge and he didn't let anyone ask him any more. Of-course, for a little while, we all just thought he was dead. After he left, mentioning the great Dick Greyson suddenly became some sort of sin, We would all avoid talking about him, or bringing him up. He was as good as dead. Then, when we were at Mal and Karen's wedding there was a gift. It had no card, no letter, nothing. There was just a little sticky attached to the big gift that said, _Your friend, Nightwing. _That little bastard didn't even show up.

I finally arrived at the Palo Alto zeta tube. From there, Artemis put in the co-ordinates to a city that I hadn't been to since the last time Artemis was getting out of retirement. A city that I never had much of an intention of returning to. But, I was zeta-ing there, once again.

As we arrived, I picked up Artemis and ran again. This time, we arrived in a warehouse. I looked around and realized that this place hadn't changed since the last time I had been here. We both just stood there, looking around, thinking of one of the most painful and difficult decisions we ever had to make. One that had thankfully happened safely.

Just like last time, Kaulder walked out from behind the boxes, but this time, he was truly un-expected. We had no idea that he would be here as well.

"Kaulder?" asked Artemis out of shock, "why are you here?"

"Well, it's nice to see the two of you as well," he asked with a faint smile. But it was very faint. Our once fearless leader looked…well, old. He already had faint stress marks and wrinkles. Poor guy was my age, but he had the whole team's responsibility on his shoulders. With Nightwing gone, and so many new members, he had to train and watch after all the new recruits that were un-trained. He was playing baby-sitter all the time, and had no time to be himself. I seriously don't know who he would be if he was not Aqualad. Who was Kaulder? We really didn't know any more. he stopped going to Atlantis after Tula's death. I don't think he had talked to Garth in years. I was in touch with him, but had a other life to live, Artemis had joined the League, and Dick had went missing. That just left M'Gann and Connor who both had made lives for themselves outside the team and weren't there 24/7.

"Well, I take that the contacted the two of you as well. I had a feeling that he would call someone else as well," Kaulder said walking over.

"Yeah, well he alway had all of us wrapped around his finger. I guess that even after leaving for years, he can just come back one day and call us. Of-course, we will all just go running back like a bunch of blind sheep." Artemis commented crossing her arms. She wasn't happy being here, but just like the rest of us, she needed answers.

"Well that is true," came the voice that I hadn't heard in over three years. "I did have that kind of powers." Just like three years ago, we were all here meeting a certin person, but this time, instead of meeting Nightwing, we saw Dick Greyson. A much older, and wearier looking Dick Greyson. As he walked onwards us, I saw that the sparkle that was once in his excited eyes was long gone, replaced by a darkness that could only be there from knowledge and maturity. But really? Dick was…mature? I mean, he did end up leading the team, so yeah, he had to be mature, but now I think that the signs that showed that he was once 13 year old playful Robin were completely lost. This just showed me how much I knew about my once upon a time best friend. Absolutely nothing anymore.

We all just stood there, a bit stunned at seeing him. Even though it had been three whole years, nothing felt different. It was like deep down, we knew that our business with Nightwing wasn't over. That he wasn't dead.

"What? No hello for your favourite superhero?" he asked in a cocky voice that just didn't seem to fade no matter how many years passed by. We just stood there, still stunned until Artemis finally snapped out of it. She walked over to him wordlessly and slapped the shit out of him. But, he didn't seem hurt, or by the looks of it, surprised. He pulled her into a hug, and I could see that tears started to steam down her face.

"It's good to see you Artemis," he said softly letting go. I was still standing in a trance.

Then, he walked over to Kaulder. They shook hands, "it's good to see you my old friend," said Kaulder in his normally formal voice he used all the time. It was the same voice that we could never read between, never know exactly what he meant and which what emotion.

"You too pal," Dick said finally making his way over to me. But I stayed silent. What was I going to say? I could get mad like Artemis, or I could just greet him like Kaulder. But, I didn't know what to say or feel, so I decided to greet him the best way I knew how. By joking about it.

"Look what the cat dragged in," I said lamely, then punching his arm, "long time no see, huh?"

"Good to see you too Wall's," he replied grinning and punching me back. But it was a weak punch. Nothing like his former punches where they actually hurt like hell, no, this was just what seemed like a regular punch by a regular man. But if there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that Dick Greyson, was NOT a regular guy. Ever.

Sure, he looked like a regular 22 year old, there was nothing special about him, except that he was very fit and quite frankly a pretty boy, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. But, after years of the crime fighting, I learned that nothing is as it seems. Nothing happens for no reason. There is always a story behind everything. So I knew that this was not a social visit.

"Well, Dick, as much as I'd like to catch up, I think that we really need to know why you decided to contact us now," I said in a no-nonsense tone.

"What? Couldn't I have called because I missed my friends?" he asked grinning and starting to walk around a bit.

"No, Dick, we know that there's a reason for your sudden call, I mean, you completely cut contact with all of us for three years, then you suddenly decided to call one morning and told us to meet in the old, abandoned warehouse that we met in to plan me going under cover in to black manta's organization all this years ago. I know we haven't seen each other in a while, but I know that this is not a social call."

"Well, as usual, you are right Artemis. This isn't a social call. it's more like I need your help for a little plan."

I groaned under my breath. I may have been best friends with this jerk once upon a time, but I knew that I did NOT like his plans. Not at all.

"Now, as much as I would like to tell you everything, I think that we should go to my place to discuss this," he said catching our attention.

"Wait, you still live in Bludhaven?" asked Kaulder calmly.

"Guys, I know it may seem like it to you, but I didn't cal off the face of the Earth, and I was keeping tabs on all of you," he replied just as calmly.

"Well, that I can say I expected," muttered Artemis.

We all walked for about 5 minutes. It was very silent. The kids that couldn't shut the hell up when they were in high school now had nothing to say to one another. It was sad really.

Finally, arrived at a fancy condo place. Dick led us in and we went up to the pant house level. Just as I thought, this guy still was stinking rick, but where did he get the money from?

As he fiddled to open the door, I saw an anxious look that crossed his face. Before I could ask what happened, the door flew open. We all walked in, and my mouth flew open. Sitting in a chair in the middle of the living room, was someone I hadn't seen in a while. Someone who had a tragic accident in her life. Someone other than Bruce that was smart enough to track down Dick. Sitting in the the middle of the living room was none other than the legend she was, Oracle.

"Ba-babs?" sputtered Artemis out of shock, "you knew where he was?"

"Nice to see you guys, its been a while," she said, her wheelchair moving without he operating it at all.

"I presume that you had always know where our friend," Kauler motioned towards Dick, "was, and where he was hiding."

"Well, that's how you look at it. I always new that he was in Bludhaven, but I just got in con act with him again about two months ago, and he was the one that contacted me, not the other way around," she said simply grabbing a coffee cup from the little table. Looking around, I realized that these two were in tech central,with holographic computers in the whole room. But, Barbra looked exhausted, I was willing to bet that she had been up most if not all of the night ding some top secret research thing that the rest of us couldn't comprehend.

"It's good to see you," i said simply not se what else to say in a situation like this.

"You too," she returned smiling, "Now, I know that you all have a ton of questions, that I'm pretty sure Dick would be more than happy to explain," but as she said that, I looked back and couldn't see Dick there. He then came back in the room holding a bottle of sprite in his hands.

"What? Nothing stronger?" I asked remembering our days as teenagers doing adult shit and getting caught. Dick especially had tons of fun with the stuff.

"Sorry Wally, I'm gonna need you to be completely sober for what I'm gonna tell you," he said grinning but in a serious voice.

"Yes, what is it that out of the blue you decided to call the three of us?" asked Kaulder, "you really need to tell us Dick."

"Yeah, well sit down, and let me explain everything, but I need you to listen to me without interruptions," he told us and we all nodded in agreement.

I had a feeling that this wasn't going to be a story I would enjoy listening to that much. Over the years, I had learned that Dick may as well be a geniuse, but his plans were always my death sentence. When we first made the team, I was always stuck with all the work, suck as 'hey! Wally can run out and grab us the movie and food and everything else 7 of us can need for the movie night!' I was stuck doing all the work, and by the time I was done playing errand boy, the movie would be half way finished. Then when we got older, it was more like 'Wally, I need to borrow your girlfriend so she can go in some totally undercover mission where her chances of dieing are exceddingly high!' I knew for sure, that the fact that I hadn't been around him for three years just meant that he had something really terrible pulled up his sleeve. But this time, I had to be smart about the decisions that I made in this.

"Well, I know that you guys are really wondering what happened to me all these years," he started stating the obvious. "Well, as I said when I left, I was taking a leave of absence. I had some things that I needed to figure out, and some work to do." He paused for a moment to examine us. I was getting impatient, he had been pausing the whole time, and I just needed to find out what the hell was going on.

"Well, right after we defeated the Reach, I realized that the Light had all vanished. They were all alive other than Ras Al Ghul, whom we all knew would come back to life. They were all alive, healthy and free. But at the moment, the Justice league was busy putting the world back in place, and they still had to fully win back the people. I knew that they had their hands full, so I made it my little duty to figure out what the Light's next step was," as he explained, everything started to make a bit of sense. I think that we all were catching the drift.

"I realized that they had been putting the plan together before we we even became a team. When we thought that their first plan failed, we found out that, that was just a distraction for the second part. We couldn't be sure wether they had another part planned out or not, it was very likely and possible. So, when I was gone, I was pulling string and trying to figure out their next plan."

"So that is what you have been doing my friend, I had my suspicions, but couldnt be sure of anything. But what I wonder now, is why do you need our help? I completely understand Barbra, she can help the research, but both Artemis and I work in the field while Wally hasn't been in the game for years," Kaulder pointed out. Artemis and I nodded in unison, we wanted to know what he decided to tell us all this one day.

"Well, there is only so much research work you can do Kaulder," spoke up Babs. "When he contacted me, he had done everything major, just needed a bit of hacking done. When we un-covered as many files and information as we could, we found out that we couldnt defeat them with knowledge. For once we needed a little action."

"Well, I still don't know what you need us for, you should talk to the League, us four, we out of all people should know not to keep secrets. They will only end up working against us in the end," Artemis told him.

"Hey, I'm not keeping any secrets, I've talked to Bruce and showed him all of my information. We will have the league and the team involved this time, but I will need you guys to help me. Artemis, I know that the killer assassin is now you style, but I will need you to do some under-cover work for me, Kaulder, since you're the team's leader, I will need you to take missions for me," he explained. But, I couldnt understand why I was here. I wasn't super smart, or even Kid Flash any more, if he needed a speedster Bart would have been a better choice. Before I could get a word in though, Artemis cut to the chase.

"What about Wally?"

He looked a little uneasy. I could just tell that I wouldn't be enjoying this one bit. "Well, I know that you're retired, but I'm gonna need a solid." I just stared back at him with a total poker face. Sadly, he was reflecting that gaze so I was really in the dark about everything.

"Now, before you say anything, I'm just telling you that no, I won't have you doing field work," that was like a load off my chest, but the curiosity rose even higher. "I will need your help with getting some tech ready. Babs will also be here, but I need someone who can made the tech, as well as possible cures, because every time we fight against them, we end up having some big desiese or something, so I will get all of the information needed, but the chem stuff will all be on you. You will get the help from Barbra, but I will need another person on board." I looked at him for a moment. I was not sure about this, it sounded fine, actually. It was probably the most desirable thing he had ever gotten me to do.

"Fine," I finally agreed, "I'll do it."

**Well, there you have it, the first chapter. I hope you like it, and the others should start coming in the next chapter. I will slowly uncover all of the information about the Light, and their plan, and what else Nightwing was doing, and anything else that you may want to know. **

**Just PM me, or ask any questions you have in a review. **

**Now, I've figured that I will only update if I get reviews, so I want to get AT LEAST 3 before I post the next chapter!**

**So remember, REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright, here's the second chapter! Ya, so I'm glad that people actually liked the last chapter! As I mentioned last time, I write from different character's POV's, this one will be 3rd persons, but pretty Tim centric. I'm finding, that Tim's going to have a pretty major role, at least in the beginning. This is a bit of a filler chapter, but it's going to explain somethings that happened in the three year gap. Fair warning: I do use characters that exist in the DC universe, but not in Young Justice, so if you don't know a character, Wikipedia it or something...**

Chapter two

3rd POV

Kauler walked into the new Team headquarters. They had gotten this place about 3 months after the Reach was defeated. Being in the watch tower was nice and all, but without the Hall of Justice, the watch tower was getting a bit … cramped. So, they had finally decided to put the 'cave' back together, but the Team was still welcome in the Hall of Justice for any reasons just like the League. The cave no longer had become a nice new building structure.

It was very similar to the cave because even though high rise buildings were very useful for offices, they weren't very headquarters like for the Team. They liked the homey warm feeling that the cave had provided them. So, the new place was made out of many nice rocks on the outside and had almost the exact same build on the inside.

Some of the Team members still lived here, and everyone had there own rooms. It was for those late night missions, or just the team bonding stays. Even though over the years, they had gained a lot of respect, they were still teenagers, and liked (for the most part) to spend time with each other. It was a nice break once in a while, and just like years before, team bonding was welcome and very encouraged.

Kaulder had spent almost his whole day at Dick's place. He, Artemis, Wally and Barbra had been there discussing all of the plans. They had gotten to find out a lot about the Light's newest plan, and he was worried that this would be the worst they had ever encountered.

As he walked toward his room at the end of the hall, he literally ran into M'Gann.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you," he said apologetically, slightly smiling towards her.

"Where were you all day? You missed the training, Thursday afternoon's remember?" she asked, confused at why he hadn't been there, without calling or anything. He was usually always there, and if he was ever away, all the plans went to M"Gann to lead the training exercise.

"Sorry, I was just a bit busy that's all," he told her vaguely.

"Not to pry or anything, but where? Was is Justice League?"

"No, M'Gann!" he snapped. She just raised an eyebrow. This was how he would act when he was tired. It was the worst when they were on mission. A crabby Aqualad was never fun.

He sighed and said, "It was Dick." That she had not been expecting. At all. She literally jumped backwards.

"Wait…what?" she said in a totally shocked tone. "You, you know where he is?"

"I just received a text from him this morning to meet me in Bludhaven. Artemis, Wally and Barbra were also there, he wanted to tell us what he was doing, and he's coming back to the Team soon. He will explain everything to you and the League then."

"Does Bruce know?"

"Yes, he was contacted first," he responded.

"So, you Artemis, Babs and … Wally were there? He does know that Wally's retired right?" she asked with a tone that was not totally neutral. "Well, I guess that Dick didn't want to hide out any more and he finally decided to come clean to none other than his best friends." She looked a bit pissed and like she wanted to see him at the same time. Kaulder wasn't the telepath, but caught on to her thoughts quickly.

"M'Gann, I don't know why he didn't call you and Connor, I think that he just wanted to keep the group small, but he was really asking about you, I know that he misses the original team, and even some of the others," he explained quickly.

"What, no, that-that's not what I meant," she stuttered a bit obviously.

"No, that's exactly what you meant, I remember when you fried my brain, and were back in Black Manta's cabin to fix them, the one thing that you were just the slightest bit mad at was the fact that Dick didn't tell you what was going on even though you were a original member."

"Well, I guess at times he'd just be a bit more inclusive," she said with a faint smile. "Anyways, so did you say that he's coming back to the team?" she asked, but this time more excited.

"Yes, he had told me to keep a meeting that will be for the team and the League that will take place in two days time. Then, he will explain everything that is going to happen involving the Light."

M'Gann didn't ask any more questions but she was obviously catching on to what he was saying. She nodded and didn't question him any further knowing that she would find out about everything when Dick decided to come and explain it.

As the two of them decided go to the kitchen to grab something to eat, but what they didn't realize was that there was a not-so-little bird listening to everything they said the whole time. As they were walking towards him, he quickly disappeared in the shadows quickly.

Once the seniors were out of sight, he decided to finally make a break for it. Running back to his room, he was panting heavily. It wasn't out of exhaustion, but because he was very shocked out of what he had heard them talking about. It was very weird, and quite unexpected.

Tim reached for the water bottle that was sitting at the side of his desk. After a pause, he finally decided to pull out his laptop. Quickly logging in, he got to work trying to find anything he could about Dick. It had been three years. He went from being a freshman to a senior. He hadn't seen Dick in the longest of times. When he left, Tim had spoken to him the day before the Reach was defeated. Right after they found out that Artemis wasn't dead, Dick told him how he knew that defeating the Reach wasn't going to be the end of their problems. He had agreed to help him do the research, but then that dreadful day came where everyone was busy running all around the world to keep the Earth going. They had lost a lot of hope in saving the Earth, but he always knew that Dick was different. Dick knew that the Team was going to defeat them in the end. He was still worried about the future. As usual.

Right after all the craziness was over, Dick had just … left. He didn't say bye to the Team just told Aqualad that he was going to take a leave of absence. That was what Kaulder had told the Team, nothing else, no information whatsoever. Tim had been mad, like the rest of the team, he was confused, but also mad that the guy he looked up to so much basically ran away. Of-course, there was Bruce, but Bruce was … Bruce. He was no help, saying that Dick had his reason, and absolutely forbid Tim from doing any research. It was unfair, but Tim had to get over it.

He knew that both Bruce and Barbra knew where he was. When the rest of the Team though that he may be dead, Tim knew that he was alive, and working to bring down the Light. But that didn't make it any easier, losing his idol. The others all eventually forgot. Bruce kept him in the dark abut everything. Tim got mad. So he decided to follow in his idols footsteps.

He struck out, and decided to go solo for a while. Became Red Robin. Okay, well he knew that the name wasn't that different, but he wanted to be his own person, not the 'third Robin' and living up to Bruce's expectations that he had developed with Dick and Jason, they were a bore. He wanted to be himself for a while. Shortly after, he met 'Spoiler' who turned out to be Stephenie Brown. Who at the time was pregnant. But he didn't know about it.

His relationship with Cassie at the time seemed to be screwed. They had been together for 6 months and were great at first, but Dick's absence and Bruce's constant annoying habits were really messing with him. He got mad at everything and everyone. Poor Cassie had been caught in the crossfire having to put up with his sudden temper. Then, one day she finally got pissed and said that they should 'take a break'. he agreed, but that didn't mean that the 'break' didn't sting.

So, a very emotional Red Robin started patrolling. Alone, he rarely talked to Bruce, but being a minor, he had to still live with him. A very emotional almost sixteen year old had totally lost it. until, one day when he was caught in a tough situation. Totally outnumbered, tired and weaponless, he was going against Poison Ivy. It had been because Bruce had some business party that he needed to attend. That left Tim tied up, and exhausted. Suddenly, some chick in an eggplant costume showed up and helped him escape. He later found out it was Stephenie Brown, a rookie wanna-bee superhero. They patrolled together, and after some time, he started telling her everything that was messed up with his life. She listened, and helped a lot.

After some trust was formed, he decided to introduce her to Bruce who had already known everything about her. Tim convinced Bruce to let her try and be Robin. But Bruce said that her fighting skills weren't up to par. She was training hard, but she just couldn't do it. Finally, Tim ended up finding out that she was pregnant. He got mad, no pissed that she hadn't told him.

As a result, she disappeared. He didn't bother to get in contact with her. But finally, eight months later, he decided to see her in the hospital when she was giving birth. He convinced her to give the baby up for adoption, then brought her back to the Batcave. Barbra, who by now who was Oracle was there, and when she saw Stephenie's potential, she convinced Bruce to let Stephenie to be the new Batgirl.

So, Stephenie joined the team, but things with her and Tim were still rocky. Cassie, had the same type of relationship with him. After they dated for a while again, she decided that he needed more time and they left each other for a while again. Now, Tim realized that he had totally fucked up two great relationships.

So, when Tim found out that Dick had been located, he knew that it was hacking time for him. He was mad, it wasn't one reason, but it was like all of the emotions he had worked so hard to bury during the past three years were surfaced again. What would happen when hey actually saw each other again? Knowing Dick, he would make some joke about the whole thing. Or pretend like it never happened. But, did he really know him any more? Did he look the same? Did he have a girlfriend? Was he in shape to fight? Did he do drugs? Okay, well that was probably not right… but the point was that he didn't know anything about the new Nightwing … or Dick …

As Tim was trying to go through his credit card information (and failing miserably) there was a knock at the door. "Come in," he said in a totally absent minded tone.

In, came Cassie, looking at him awkwardly. "Uh, hi," she started. He didn't really hear or see her because he was so into the failed hacking. "Listen," she said, "so M'Gann was asking if your staying for dinner or not."

When he didn't respond, instinct kicked in and she grabbed his laptop away. "Hey!" he yelled in a winey tone.

"You want your laptop back?" she asked in a teasing tone.

"Yes," he said stubbornly.

'Well, answer me, M'Gann asked if you were staying for dinner of not," she repeated.

"Fine, whatever, I was doing important work!"

She just rolled her eyes and threw the laptop back on his bed and stalked out. As he watched her, he realized that this was not going to help their messed up state at all. But, she and Stephenie were both tough two win over. Finally giving up, he went back to work at the fail at trying to find out anything about Dick, but he had made everything in his life top secret, so fining out about anything was going to take hours of going through a very though encryption. It may not even be possible since his hacking skills weren't really up to par.

After about an hour, M'Gann called them all down for dinner. She had made 2 batches of lasagne for everyone. Other than M'Gann, Connor, Kaulder, Garfield and Bart who lived here, Cassie and Tim were there for dinner. Bart was visiting in central City, so he wasn't there. This is the time when Tim wished that he, or Jamie, or Virgil, or Kyle a Green Lantern who had joined the team about 2 years ago, or basically _anyone_ else were here. That would be really awesome, mostly because then he'd have someone my age to talk to. He and Garfield were friends, but at the time, Gar was busy playing a video game that Tim didn't like, and he knew not to interrupt him when he was busy, so that just left him with the seniors of the team, and ex-girlfriend.

Before they could finish the dinner though, the zeta tube was turned on.

"Recognized Batman 02 now in cave," the annoying female automated voice said. They all looked at each other confused, but before we could get up themselves, Batman came storming in himself.

"Aqualad, have you-" he started but was cut with a sharp nod from Kaulder. He, M'Gann and Connor who Tim was guessing was in on the secret all shared a knowing look. "Well, I expect to see the Team in the watchtower tomorrow sharply at noon. Make sure that none of them are late," and with that he left just as quickly as he had come in. Cassie and Gar both looked pretty confused, but Tim knew that he had come to talk about Dick. Well, it looked like he was going to have to wait until tomorrow to see.

**Okay, I don't know why, but I totally needed to add Stephenie to have a love triangle going. Who should Tim end up with in the end? Well, that I'm going to leave up to you to vote on :) and yes, I'm also going to be adding Kyle Rayner because they needed a Green Lantern and I totally love him too. I will be changing their personalites a bit, but their backgrounds are basically going to be the same unless if it's mentioned differently in the text. Now, I NEED reviews to update, so please take a second to review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, it's finally time for Chapter 3! This chapter was the longest so far, and I have to admit, even though nothing that important happens, I had tons of fun writing it. **

**For the Cassie VS Stephaine voting, I got 2 Steph, 3 Cass, so yeah Cassie's winning, but I'm not going to have him end up with either one for a while, so I really wanna see more votes! (and sorry, you cant vote twice) There will be some character development, and some will seem different than their TV show selves, but I just want to remind you that people change in three years, and the circumstances really matter as well, so yes, they will be different. **

**Disclaimer: I own YJ and the DC universe. Okay, I'm just trying to make myself feel good, but I don't own it...**

Chapter Three

M'Gann POV

I sat in the Watchtower alone, getting ready to get the meeting started. Sadly, I was an hour earlier than the time we were going to start. The only reason that I was actually here this early was because Batman had called to let me know about the Team's current progress and how I was going to have to change how some things worked in the cave. The reason that I had to do this because over the years, I had ended up being like the mommy in the cave.

Most of the people that lived there didn't have any close family to live with. Poor Garfield had to see his mother's crashed car, Connor had Superman, but they had more of a sibling relationship, and there was the fact that Connor was 26. Bart had the whole Flash family, but his role was … a bit off. Jay and Joan were old, Barrie and Iris were very busy with the twins, and Wally was, well young. Kaulder had no where else to go, quite literally, after he stopped going to Atlantis, the Cave was his number one home, and he grew a bit apart from king Orin. Me, well I'd been living here ever since the team started so, moving was never in the picture.

So, since I was like the babysitter, all the new training schedules, strict diets and research projects that Dick made were going to be informed by me. Of-course, all of this was going to have like a giving a bunch of toddlers medicine. It was going to pretty hard on my part, because most of the team was made up of teenagers. Teenagers that don't listen to anyone, even if it's for their own good. Of-course rebelling was what made the team in the first place, but it was only good to an extent, and knowing Dick, he wouldn't lift a finger in helping me get them all prepared. Just yesterday, Kaulder told me that he had been given a ton of homework by Dick. Connor didn't handle kids that well, and that was basically it. The only person on the team that was an adult other than that was Kyle Rayner, a Green Lantern but he like Connor was, well, a hothead.

I trusted the kids with my life, but simple everyday jobs, not so much. Everyone that they were scared of were in the League. There was Bats, but his methods were a bit … harsh. No wonder all the Robin's ended up moving further and further away. Then, there was Tigress. Over the years, Artemis had gained a quality that made everyone listen to her on command. It was totally her style, and it helped me until she decided to take the League's offer and join them. Another person that they bothered listening to was Barbra. She didn't glare like Bruce, or yell like Artemis, but a bit like Dick, Oracle got a scary aura when you didn't listen to her, and she was calm with them.

It's hard believing that we were all teenagers just six or seven years ago. It was also funny that we forgot how to handle them ourselves It's official. Growing up really suckes. Really, now we have to worry so much more. It was a lot more fun when we didn't have that many worries and just did what the League told us to. Of-course working for the League meant that we had to grow up early, but the immatureness was in everyone that age, wether they liked it or not.

Looking at the schedule that Bruce had given me, I realized that this was going to be hard work. But, I still had a reason for believing Dick when he would tell me it was necessary later. the training was very extensive. Everyone on the team was good. No doubt about it, but this was like adding 3 or 4 caution measures. Black Canary and Artemis were going to have their hands full with teaching them this. It wasn't simple self defence, or attack. We were going to go over many ancient styles of fighting, and going to learn many team manoeuvres. Most of this was going to be done without any powers. I think that Tim may be able to get this, but the others were definitely going to have a little difficulty.

Then there was the dietary restrictions. That was really terrible. Cookies or any desserts only once a week. Well, it looked like my baked goods were going to be taking a little break for a while. The rest seemed like rabbit food. It was all like plain salad, plain pasta, and the list was ongoing with a ton of plain food. This was really going to be tough.

But the one thing that was going to kill most was the time we would have to wake up. Since the kids school started at 8, they would have to be at Mount Justice for training at 5:30 to 7:00. Then, be back after school for training from 4:00 to 6:00. This was three and a half hours of very painful training daily, and then missions right after. the only days off were Friday and Sunday. Other than that, unless if injured, or had exams, they would have to train.

The training wasn't only physical though, there was also going to be many mental tests. Babs was going to have to help with learning how to hack, they were going to be put in situations where they had very limited resources and have to get out within time limits, and were going to have to study different chemicals that they may face, which Wally was going to teach.

But that wasn't even the scariest thing. There was a suggestion for another failsafe mission. If I controlled the situation, it would be safe, but also very mentally scarring. It would definitely kill them on the inside, having a very un-happy memory of this, I would definitely have to talk to Dick about taking this away.

As I was finishing reading through the paper, League and Team members started to arrive. The meeting was going to start at 12 sharp. And when Batman said sharp, he meant sharp. To the second. Being late was the worst thing you could ever do in a situation like that, so arriving early was much safer and preferable.

Zatanna showed up, and walked right up to me.

"Uh, I hate these League induction meetings," she commented. Of-course Zatanna, and basically everyone else coming here thought that this was the yearly induction meeting. It was quite boring actually, we just talked about people that could join the League or Team. It was mostly all of the older heroes arguing about who was better, then we would all vote. Normally, the team stayed mute during these, but even Zatanna who had been a member of the League for years normally didn't contribute that much. It just wasted time arguing, when in the end we would all just vote. But normally, it did end up taking the whole day.

"Tell me about it," I agreed pretending like I didn't know that Dick was going to show up and tell us all about a plan that the Light had come up with that was scarier than ever, and it was all in the hands of a bunch of 17 year olds. Nope, she as well as everyone else was going to find out about all of that later. For now, we could enjoy complaining.

More time passed, and I grew incredibly impatient. Talking didn't seem to do me justice. I think it was just because I knew that this was not an ordinary meeting, and I couldn't wait to see Dick again. I also wanted to know more about the Light's plan. Last night Kaulder had told me the bits and pieces that he remembered hearing from Dick, but it wasn't clear. Still, it sounded really dangerous and risky.

There was still about 15 minutes for the meeting to start, and just as I was about to go to the meeting room, the zeta tube went on indicating that Kaulder and Connor were here. They both got texts from Dick early in the morning, telling them to meet him to discuss the plan which I knew nothing about yet. I had gotten a text telling me to meet Bruce and get to know the new schedule that was up to me to in force. Lucky me.

They both came towards me, and I opened a mental link so the others there couldn't hear anything that we were saying.

"_How did it go with Dick?" _I asked.

_"Well, he told me my part for starters," _Connor said a bit wearily.

_"Yes, I have to admit that he has everything extremely organized, I guess that cutting out everyone important in your life will do that to you," _commented Kaulder.

_"Well, I saw that training schedule, and the Team is going to hate it, and on top of that, if he has both of you busy helping him, then I'll have to do most of the training myself,"_ I complained a little. I don't think that this plan was going to be easy on us. Heck, he even got Wally to help after how Wally said that he wasn't coming back into this life. After everything that he went through. This was really going to end up _really _killing one of us sooner or later, but we could just hope for the best.

The three of us entered the meeting room. After the Team started joining the meetings, and since the league was growing, we needed a bigger place to hold the meetings. That was procrastinated on, until the Team's Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner joined us. He was super artistic and in school to become a interior designer, so in the end, Batman basically told him to design the place and not worry about the cost. After he designed it, all the heavy hitters of the League and team didn't have a hard time putting it together. It was especially hard on me, because levitation meant that I was just put on the clean-up team without question. But, in the end it did turn out really nice though.

The whole place was very blue and silver. The seating area was like a big C. There were two rows, and there were seats for everyone on them. At the front of the room, there was like a mini stage for the person running the meeting to stand on, with a podium and everything. Behind them, there was a large screen that could show everything that they would need to show. At everyones seats, there was the holographic sheet that you could turn on to look at something for more detail, and used for voting. The leather seats and hard wood seats were both in a nice maple with the room walls in a pretty neutral beige, and a lot of glass. There were also statues of the founding members in corners of the walls. It was actually pretty nice.

The room was also really big, so there was a high tech speaker system that was attached to ear pieces that everyone had to put on. I fiddled with mine before actually putting it on. There were five minutes before noon and there were only two people that everyone knew would be coming that was Tigress and Oracle. I knew that she was going to show up and surprise everyone. It was really going to be quite interesting when both of them showed up.

As if on cue, the zeta tube went off, "Recognized Tigress 30, Wally West B-03," as the robotic shrill turned off, everyone gasped. It had been years since Wally was up here. the last time had been when we all thought he was dead. Most of the League and some of the Team hadn't seen him ever since. It was a surprise to everyone except for the original team, and Bats who knew that he was going to be here.

Wordlessly, they both walked in, acting totally normal and taking their seats at the back between me and Kaulder. Before anyone could start asking questions, Artemis gave a killer glare all around the room, and that got everyone to instantly look away. But, there were still two people in the room that were looking straight at Wally. Barrie and Bart. The two of them were totally confused, and kept looking over.

Beside me, Wally sighed and asked, "M'Gann, can you open a mind link for the three of us?" I nodded and opened it.

_"Hey Bart, Uncle B,"_ said Wally through the link. Both blinked, then looked over to see me and quickly understood what was going on.

_"Wally, what are you doing here?" _came Barrie's voice totally confused.

_"Don't worry, you'll know what's going on soon enough," _he told them giving a confident nod. As they looked away, I closed the mind link and it was time for the meeting.

As Batman was about to start, Stephenie cut in to say, "Wait, where's Oracle?" We all knew that Stephenie looked up to Barbra as her mentor, not Bruce. Their relationship wasn't a very good one, and only worked because Barbra forced them to get along.

"She had something urgent to get to and will be joint us later," he told her giving her a bat-glare for speaking out of turn. She just slumped back down in her seat and crossed her arms. I noticed that Tim, who was sitting right next to her had a mirroring the same posture. It wasn't right, all of the Bats had Alfred and he was all about perfect posture, so them slumping wasn't a good sign. Bruce that morning hadn't been a great mood either. Just a bit grumpier than the regular Batman. Something must have happen that morning.

"Alright, everyone take your seats, it's time to begin," said Batman who's voice sounded even scarier on the speaker system. Everyone heard it and immediately sat down.

At the front of the room stood Batman, Superman, and Wonderwoman, all with their intimidating glares. They were _the _hero's, the strongest, the smartest, and perhaps the scariest. It was obviously time to start.

After about half an hour into pure arguements, I zoned out. Listening to this was very boring indeed. The older hero's were very proactive with putting in their thoughts. They all thought that their opinion was right, and everyone else was wrong, but it clearly and thankfully didn't work like that. It couldn't. If we started listening to _only _Batman, by now the world would be full if brooding, quiet hero's that wouldn't bother appealing to the public. If we listened to _only _Superman, we would all be BoyScout's out to please everyone with very thick and impenetrable skulls, not listening to anyone else. Wonder Woman would probably make that whole League only female, not that at times I've considered how great that could have been, but it would end as a failure. Flash would make the League be a bunch of hotheads with raw power who would jump into every obstacle with brute force. Alone, these guys wouldn't last a month. _Together, _they stood a chance at actually helping the world.

The meeting went on for another three hours when we finally reached the last candidate was on the screen. There was a gasp that went around the room, no-one actually thought that he would actually make it on the list, but it made sense.

This candidate was young. Very young. He had a hot temper, and thought of himself above the rest of the world. From what I had heard, he threatened to kill whoever go in his way. He was new to the world of hero's. But, he had one thing no one else in the room, or the world had. He had half of Bruce Wayne's DNA. The candidate was Damian Wayne.

"NO!"yelled Tim from the bad of the room, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

"Sit down, Robin has a fair chance just like every other hero out there," said Batman in a weary voice like he had this conversation 10 times a day.

"THE KID'S TEN!" he yelled ignoring his mentor, "He can't join the team, we can't babysit him for you Bruce! He's annoying, and literally thinks he's a prince, the Team shouldn't have to put up with him!"

"What's wrong with being ten and fighting bad guys?" asked Captin Marvel who we all know started when he was ten.

"What's wrong is that he'll just be getting in the way!" came Tim's furious reply.

Then Stephenie sighed and said, "I hate to agree with Red Robin here and his personal issues, but I have to agree that Damian's not ready. He's a bit … rough around the edges," she said.

"Who asked you?" asked Cassie glaring at Stephenie, "this is a democracy, we're all going to vote on it."

"Look," said Stephanie in a sharp voice, "knowing him personally, I know that he's not ready and just telling everyone from personal experience."

"This shouldn't even be an option!" yelled Tim looking at Cassie who was really getting mad. This was not good. All these kids were really good, and normally calm, but lately, these three had been picking on each other at every chance they got.

"Oh yeah," started Cassie but was stopped from Batman's voice.

"Enough, we are all going to decide as a team," he said with a venomous voice. But that didn't scare either of the kids at all. The adults all kept in their chairs not wanting to get caught in the cross fire. The rest of the team was used to this and stayed back as well.

"No! This isn't fair, you all say that the team is equal, but you still treat us like children!" yelled Tim who was really acting out of character.

"He's right!" said Stephanie, "at least when the other's say something, you listen to their reasoning! With us you're just like 'shut up kids' and then decide everything yourself," she said sounding like she wanted to let this out for a long time now.

"We do that because you act like little kids and don't leave us a choice!" Batman justified. But, Batman _never _justified himself!

Before this very scary argument continued, someone finally decided to stop it, "Quiet!" yelled Wally. Everyone in the room turned towards him in surprise. Wally wasn't the type to step in fights, or to yell at Batman in his face.

"I know that I'm not in the League or the Team anymore, but from personal experience, I do have to agree with Tim and Stephenie," he said earning a glare from Batman, but before anyone else could say anything, he spoke up again, "_but_, it is a group decision and everyone should hear what they have to say and then vote."

The three bats looked at each other and sat down.

"Alright," said Superman taking charge since Batman wasn't in any condition to lead, "now that we have discussed all possible candidates, it's time to vote."

We all started to put in the votes. As soon as all of the answers all went in, the zeta tube went on.

"Recognized, Oracle 31, Nightwing B-01," everyones heads snapped towards the zeta tube.

"Sorry we're late, there was some important work that we needed to do," said Barbra calmly like she didn't bring in a seemingly dead man into the Watch Tower. Everyone was to stunned to speak. This was when Batman took charge again.

"Alright everyone, now, there will be an announcement considering the team that we need everyone for," he looked at Dick who nodded and went to the front of the room.

"Alright, so you're all wondering where I've been for the past three years," he started, looking around the room. Then, he went on to explain his research about the Light, and then his plan for the Team. It was detailed. Scary detailed, and he had taken _ever _safety precaution. Everyone thought he would be rough, out of practice, but when Nightwing was involved, _nothing _was rough. Ever.

"I think that if the team starts doing some undercover work, we could uncover them all to the world for the crimes without getting to a point where we won't be able to stop them. The last two times they got pretty close to winning, this time, if we keep the cards in our hands, we went get to that point, we'll just have to work harder in the beginning," he finished explaining.

"I'm in!" came Jamie's approval from the far side of the room. Nightwing grinned at the BlueBeetle then looked at the league to see what they had to say.

"I don't know," started Superman, "I think that your plan involves too much risk, and if the Team gets caught, we're all going to pay, I don't think it's necessary."

"Wrong," spoke Tigress from the back. She jumped from behind the tables and landed right next to Nightwing, "it's very necessary, because if we don't do something about it now, then they will be playing us, _again. _We should have learned from the last two times, that if they get far into their plan, then it's going to be trouble for all of us," she said staring at the Man of Steel without breaking a sweat.

"We know that you think it's necessary, but we think that there are better ways," spoke up Black Canary, "I out of all people don't question that the team's really good, but I also I know that the Justice League is about stopping fights, not starting them."

"Wrong," spoke Superboy standing beside Tigress and crossing his arms. "It's about bringing Justice, and if the team's ready to do this, then we should trust Nightwing's judgement."

With the three of their stubbornness combined, there was no way that the League was going to put a stop to this. Thankfully, they understood, and decided to stand down.

"Well, if the Team's fine with it, then we'll let you take charge," said Superman and the room turned towards the Team.

"The plan's crash," said a gleeful Kid Flash, "I'm in!"

"Yeah me too," Static said.

"Me three," came Beast Boy's voice.

"I'm game," came Cassie's voice as well.

"What will you do without me," also came the youngest Green Lantern's voice well.

That just left two people. Everyone in the room turned to look at the two pissed off Bats.

Stephenie looked at everyone, then finally replied, "yeah, sure," sarcastically.

That just left Tim. he was refusing to look at anyone in the room, staring at the ceiling, "whatever." He didn't sound sure, but no-one seemed to notice.

"Well, there you have it," said Nightwing a bit gleefully, "Miss Martain has the new timetable for the team, I will send it to all their mentors as well as trainers," everyone agreed.

After the meeting was finally over, I went to sit by a big window that was in front of the zeta tubes. Looking down at the world from up here, you could really see how small and fragile it really was. When I first came to Earth, 8 years ago, I was really excited. It was truly a wonderful place with so much to look forward to. But now, I see it as a small planet that's quite interested in itself and is slowly starting to fall apart. but, it's still a very wonderful planet. Just goes to show you, that when sitting in a big city with millions of people, your little everyday problems seem so big. But when up here, everything just seems small, unnoticeable and well, un-important.

"Perspective is a wonderful thing, isn't it?" came a voice saying exactly what I was thinking.

I smiled and looked up, "it truly is."

Dick sat down next to me smiling, "well, I can't say that I haven't missed you."

"I missed you too Dick, it was a really mean thing to do you know, just leave us and go," I said taking out the few words that had been bugging me for three years.

"I wasn't taking a vacation, it sucked leaving, but I did what I had to do," he said lightly.

"Well, now that you're back, I'd like to say that, that timetable you created is going to really do a number on me, you do realize that I'm the one that's going to have to keep the whole team on track right?" I asked. He just laughed.

"Well, I hope you enjoy you're special job," he said gleefully.

"Heartless idiot," I said smiling and hit him lightly which git him to laugh even more.

When he finally stopped, he said, "you know, I really missed my big sis, and her cookies," as he said that, I started tearing up a bit, "and I did not like your sarcasm at all."

"Hey, I wasn't kidding! I really missed your cookies!" he defended.

"What about your healthy food timetable?" I asked using his own creation against him.

"Well, this is a special occasion and a Friday," he said and then tugged me up, "come on, I want some cookies!"

"Alright, alright, I'll make you some cookies to shut you up!"

We both then walked up to the zeta tube and put in the coordinates for the cave. So I could make the sarcastic idiot cookies.

**Well, there you have it! Everyone knows that Dick's back, and there was a mini Cassie VS Stephanie and Tim ****moment. There are gonna be a ton of arguments, cause I really love writing them! Now, I've decided that I won't update until I get up to 18 reviews. That's right, I want 8 for this chapter, and I'm not shy about giving out numbers either, plus, if I get more than that, I'll update the next two chapters really quickly. Promise. I can't update until Saturday, and after that, it'll just depend on the reviews [oh, and the next chapter's gonna explain how Wally survived, and the one after that will be the best one yet with Dick and the OC, so I'm just saying, that reviews would be great :)] okay, enough me trying to bribe you for reviews, if there's anything you don't understand or like, then don't be scared of telling me, I like getting criticism. HAVE A HAPPY MIDDLE OF APRIL! (didn't know what else to say -.-") **

**Toodles!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Alright, I'll tell you straight up that this is gonna be a pretty un-eventful chapter. Artemis and Wally centric, and explains a little about what happened in the three years. Alright, so I didn't get 18 reviews, but I wasn't planning to, I just wanted to see how many people would review if I said that :) anyways, for anyone who hasn't voted yet, it's still opened, but should only be open for another 2 or 3 chapters, so HURRY and get them in!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice, and I sadly never will, but if anyone wants to gift it to me, be my guest :)**

Chapter Four

Artemis POV

Finally, after the long and quite boring League Induction meeting was over, Wally and I made our way back to Palo Alto. As soon as the Zeta tube transported us, a rush of warm air hit me right in the face. It was really nice, not hot like the uncontrollable summers, and not muggy either, just nice and warm. I really loved the weather here. Growing up in Gotham meant putting up with the cold weather as well. Moving to Palo Alto had to be one of the best decisions in my life because of the weather alone.

The Palo Alto zeta tube was located at the side of an old abandoned train station. I quickly pulled off my Tigress costume which I was wearing a tank top and shorts under. Then, Wally and I went down to where our car was parked. Our apartment was just 3 blocks away from the station, so normal we walked, but this morning, we had to do grocery shopping as well. What really sucked was when we got home, Dick called telling us both to meet him in Bludhaven so he could give out the 'schedules'. Kaulder and Connor had been there as well. Then, when the other two left, Wally had to stay to talk to Babs about the cure thingy and forced me into waiting for him. The voting as usual had taken a pretty long time, then there was Dick's presentation, so in the end, it had been a pretty boring day.

The ride back was short, and as soon as we were home, I just wanted to sit and study. Yeah, that's a pretty weird thing to wish for, but I was really happy that this was my last year in school. After finishing undergrad, I had taken many specialized courses. It was mostly linguistics, I knew 4 languages fluently being English, Vietnamese, Spanish, and French. But now, I was also learning German, and Cantonese. Yeah, it was a pretty odd mix, but the Viatnamese helped with the Cantonese and the French with German. Wally said I was crazy for learning so many languages, but for me it was almost as fun as being Tigress. Almost.

My plans for after University were simple. Ollie being, well Ollie, basically begged me to be the official translator for Queen's Industries. At first, I though it was charity, like 'give you former sidekick a job' kind of thing, but then found that they actually needed a new translator soon because the last two had been paid off to lie. It was ironic actually, considering that it was a international company that sold weapons, so they should have good translators, but apparently not.

So, then I ended up taking the job. This was also a time that I gave zeta tubes a special thumbs up. They were the reason that I could live in Palo Alto, and could still work in Star City. 8 years ago, I couldn't think where I would be right now. Who knows where I would be if I didn't decide to take that patrol and see Wally in trouble all those years ago.

Parking, we got out and carried in the groceries. Thankfully, there had been no meat or dairy products so the food didn't end up rotting end smelling like shit. If it did, I would definitely have given Dick a piece of my mind.

As soon as Wally opened the door, our adorable not so little dog Nelson ran out. Yes, Nelson was named after the first Doctor Fate who helped Wally in many ways after meeting him for like an hour.

Poor Nelson was stuck at home alone all day. He was a very active dog (like most dogs) and really hated being stuck inside. Normally, when we were both busy, I would get Mia a little girl that lived next door to take him for a walk or something, but Mia was gone on a week long school trip, so that meant that Nelson was going to be stuck at home until one of us decided to take him for a walk. It was probably going to be Wally, because Dick had me busy all week, and one of my exams was just around the corner.

Wally was lucky. He finished all his exams last month. He basically had his whole future planned out as well. It had SCIENCE PROFESSOR written all over it. The guy was taking like 5 specialized courses and getting a masters degree in Physics in the Quantum Field theory. He was going to end up like doctor Palmer or something, teaching in a University. Karen had went down basically the same road. Since both were so into Science, and retired heroes, I would find Karen over at the randomest times and the two of them would _compare notes_. Both were in different field, sure, but science people loved to geek out. I know quite a lot for someone who hasn't taken it after grade 12, but talking at Wally's standard is close to impossible, so I gave it up a long time ago.

We both planned on living in Palo Alto until we graduated, and probably after that as well. Ever since I turned 18, there was only a month and a half when I lived somewhere else, not counting the time I spent on Black Manta's ship.

It was after Wally had 'died' defeating the Reach invasion. When he, with Bart and Barrie were running around the boom tube in the Arctic, he had disappeared, claimed to be 'dead' because of the pressure. After that, I had moved back to Gotham, devastated. I really didn't know what I was supposed to do anymore with life. Dick had went away as well, and no-one else was bringing him up in-front of me.

Barrie had it hard on him too, so he wasn't using the speed force, and neither was Bart. One day, about a month later, Flash was fighting Zoom in Central City. He had to resort in using the Speed Force. But, he couldn't control it for some reason. The last time he had used it was with Wally. When Bart tried, he couldn't control it either. That's when the theory came up that when they were using the Speed Force in the Arctic, the combined energy of the two and the kinetic energy of the boom tube could have sucked Wally into the speed force because there had been no body. It was risky, but both speedsters decided to try and see if they could bring him back.

So, they made up some kinetic energy and tried again. This time, there was some portal that appeared, but there wasn't enough energy for them to bring him back. The second time, they tried it with Jay Garrick and Superman's help. It actually worked. Out of the portal came a animistic and exhausted Wally, but a very alive Wally.

Once he was well again, we had moved back to Palo Alto and continued on with our studies, agreeing to pretend like that month and a half never happened. In the end, it was the absolute best choice. We never talked about it, there were no fights or anything, so everything was great.

As I was changing in our room, I heard Wally laugh, "Hey Arty, come you've gotta check this out!" I walked out into the living room, where Wally was holding the home phone in his hands.

"Listen to this," he said pressing a button on the phone.

"_Um, Hey Wally, or Arty whoever picks up the phone, anyways, so yeah, I've been running low on cash lately and totally been feeling the mode, and I kinda need a boost, so if you two have any jobs for me that would totally be crash, you know walking Nelson, or taking out your trash, or making dinner for you, or testing you for your exams, or doing well, whatever, again, that would totally be crash, please? Oh, and if you haven't figured it out yet, it's Bart, so if you have any job, I'll be happy to do if for you, so yeah."_

As he hung up the phone, we both burst out laughing. "Wow, that kid's … something," said Wally hanging up the phone. "Did we really sound that lame when we were sixteen?"

"You did, I didn't," I said automatically. He just glared at me and gave a look that was indicating a face palm coming on soon.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed making fun of me, now I'm going to go to bed and act like Dick doesn't want me at the watch tower for like the next two nights in a row," he said, "night!"

"Fine, go ahead and sleep like a coward, I'm gonna be in here watching TV," I told him getting just a grunt in reply. After a moment I realized something, "Hey Wally!"

"Yeah?"

"Are we going to give Bart the cash he oh-so desires?"

"No way," came the response, "Barrie told me the last time he was 'running low on cash', he spent it towards buying video games, besides he lives at the cave, so all the food and tuition money's paid off, what else does he need?"

"Eh, good point," I replied turning the TV on a crash in on the couch. I put on some Criminal Minds, but sometime while watching it I must have fell asleep, cause the next thing I knew, my sell phone was ringing.

"Hello?" I picked it up groggily while looking at the time.

"You know that it's like 2 in the morning here right?" I asked the caller who was waking me up after such a long day. After 5 minutes of hearing shit, I finally said, "alright, jackass, I'm up, but your making this up to me later," with that I hung up the phone and dragged myself off of the couch and into the bathroom to change. something told me it was going to be a long night.

**Yeah, I know. That was the most boring and un-eventful chapter ever. I didn't know how else to bring Wally back, so played around with the SpeedForce theory. Oh, and if your wondering, he didn't age. Magically, he's still his normal age. The next chapter should be up sometime this week, and it's gonna be good, and long and full of DICK GREYSON! YAAAA, so it'll be awesome. So you wanna see the next chapter? Well, review and I'll show it to you. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Well, I'm back, with the chapter I like best so far! Yes, it's Nightwing! Now, it's kinda eventful, and I can let you know that until about chapter 12, everything will be fun and games, so nothing _that _important is going to happen until getting to understand the plot. I'm also going to have a Spitfire oneshot out soon, so keep checking my profile for that!**

**Disclaimer: I dont, never had, never will, (but will still hope for) own Young Justice, if I did, there would be a season three, Wally wouldn't retire, and I would add WAYYYYY more drama.**

Chapter Five

Dick POV

It was pretty late when I finally left the cave. Babs had joined us at about 10, when we were starting the third batch of cookies. I had been eating them like a total crazy person, but three years without a home-made chocolat chip cookie should be illegal. They were _so _good and M'Gann kept making me some, so I took full advantage of her hospitalities knowing that they wouldn't last that long.

When I was at the cave, M'Gann caught me up on what had been happening at the cave for the past three years. There was some teenage drama, that had been going on since our time, and there was how the teams had been divided to work. Basically there were some fixed teams that worked, and like how someone was always on monitor duty on the watchtower, there would be one person from the group that would stay at the cave from now on.

There were also some special things that they looked at when making the groups. They avoided putting Cassie near Stephanie or Tim, they also tried to keep M'Gann and Beast Boy together because they were both shape shifters, and the same was for Cassie and Connor for being the heavy hitters.

They were basically teams within teams, which seemed like a pretty organized system instead of sending in like ten people all together. The only problem that I saw was that for what was ahead, the whole team would need to know how to work together. Team building was necessary so they all knew how to work together, not just with their respective teammates. I'd need to talk to Artemis about that during their training.

When it was 11:30 when I decided to head back to Bludhaven. I had a lot of research that still wasn't completed. But, before I could put in the coordinates, Barbra cut in front of me.

"You're coming to Gotham with me," she ordered.

"Um … why?" I asked not sure why I was going to Gotham.

"Well, Bruce wanted to talk to you about _the _file, I can help you with the research, you haven't seen Alfred yet, you didn't talk to Tim yet, must I go on?" I put my hands up in surrender and decided that being stubborn with Babs never worked and I'd end up going to Gotham no matter what, so I just followed her to the city I grew up in.

The woman's mechanic shrill announced our presence, as I walked out the zeta tube. I looked around the Batcave to see if anything had changed or not. It was basically the same as it had been the first time when I found it when I was nine. It was dark, it was cold, but it was home. I realized right off the bat that the training area he had at the side had expanded, and the computers were all updated.

Inside, Bruce was sitting on his computer and dint even flinch when he heard that I was coming in. Sometimes I forgot the he was _the _Batman. When I was younger, it was like a responsibility. Everyone expected so much out of me. Then, when I went on my own, I realized the potential I really had, without having to follow Bruce's rules. It's not like I wasn't thankful to Bruce; he taught me everything I know, but at a time, it just comes to realization that you can't have a mentor to lead you forever.

"Did you get the folder I sent you yesterday?" asked Barbra getting right to work. Her chair moved over to the one computer where there was no chair and she started opening the folder. I followed to the chair on the other side of Bruce and got onto that computer. As we started working, there was a gasp at the back of the room. We all turned to see an angry Alfred coming over.

"Master Richard!" he said shocked. I got up and hugged him and said, "it's great to see you Alfred."

"Why didn't you tell me here was here?" Alfred asked Bruce making Bruce look a little embarrassed. Alfred was the only person that could make Bruce look embarrassed. "Sorry," he said looking back at the screen. "Anyways, I haven't been able to crack the file," he admitted sounding ashamed, "yet."

"Well, Master Bruce, you, Miss Gordon and Master Richard can work on the file, I'll go and make cookies," Alfred said leaving. As soon as he turned around, I fist pumped in the air just to turn and see Bruce and Barbra sweat dropping.

"You know, after eating 3 batches of M'Gann's cookies back in the cave, you should really cut back unless you wanna make that butt of yours even more fat," said Barbra cheekily. I just brushed the comment off and didn't answer.

For the next half an hour, the three of us sat in silence, with the only noise you could hear was us typing on the computers and the radio signals that were going on from the police station turning on. There was no major crime going on yet, so we all stay put and tried doing the decryption for the file I had found last month. When I was hacking into Luthor's database, I found an uncrackable file. Not giving much importance to it, I ignored it until I found a file with the same type of decryption in Ras Al Ghul's database. He had been resurrected once again to our annoyance.

So, after showing to Babs and Bruce, we had all been spending all our time trying to get into it, but it seemed impenetrable. The only others that knew about were the people on the original team, but none of them being hackers, they weren't that much help.

Alfred walked in the room with a pan of fresh cookies, but this time, he wasn't alone. Following him were a very solitudeish Tim and Stephanie. I really didn't pay attention to the though, as the aroma of Alfred's cookies filled the air. Babs and Bruce stopped working to grab one as well, but I took two and stuffed my face. "Damn, Alfred, missing your cookies was definitely the worst thing about leaving," I said honestly.

"Well, Master Richard, I am pleased that my cookies are that good," agreed Alfred.

"Bruce, are we going to train or are you going to cancel like yesterday?" asked Tim tired of talking about cookies.

"Babs, can't you just help with the training?" asked Stephanie hopefully.

"Sorry Steph, I've gotta finish this," then she turned to Bruce and said, "can they go on patrol tonight? You seem busy," he nodded in response.

"So now we're doing your job?" asked Tim sounding uncharacteristic, but then again, I don't know much about him anymore, but other than Stephanie, the others all wore pained expressions.

"Please Tim?" asked Barbra, "for me?" He rolled his eyes and followed Stephanie as they left to change.

"Do you want to go to?" asked Bruce looking at me. I was about to gently refuse, but then I realized that he had just _asked_ me to go patrolling. Bruce Wayne or Batman _never_ asked for everything, he either told or ordered, either way, never _asked. _So, I decided that this was a big deal for me to let pass up.

"Sure," I accepted.

"Oh, and the spare bike's in repair, so you can take the Batmobile," he said just as Tim and Stephaine returned. Stephaine looked jealous, and Tim like he hadn't just heard him tell me to take the Batmobile.

We quietly walked and before leaving Stephaine told him, "we'll take west, you take east," and they both zoomed off. He just looked as they both drove off and decided to just continue on his own. Finally, I just decided to go and patrol.

Patrolling in Gotham was different than patrolling in Bludhaven. Whenever you stepped out in Gotham, there was a level of excitement that came with it. The same was with Bludhaven, but it was different. In Gotham, crime is everywhere. Quite literally, it was like the plague, as soon as the sun set and the lights turned on, the crime was turned on as well. That's why they needed the 'extra help' the Justice League provided. To stop goons and idiots from running around and making huge mistakes. In Gotham, fighting crime was like getting a high, exciting in the beginning, not so much when it was over. But, no matter what anyone said, it was truly necessary.

I entered into the most dangerous part of Gotham. The north-west side. Here, there was something wrong going on down every alley. It was never boring, but I did get tired after a while. Not physically, these guys didn't know how to even throw a punch, they just threatened with knives and guns, but I got tired of fighting one after another. One time, I fought a guy three different times before I got a chance to call the cops. It was sad, and quite frankly, the high would wear off.

After just an hour, it was 2 in the morning. I had made 2 rounds, and stopped one break in, two drug dealers, and _nine _rape attempts. Seriously, these guys needed to get a brain. Besides, this wasn't the nineteenth century where the women should not leave their houses because of men. It was really unfair that they had to go through this. In a first world country as well. It's as if they _liked _the idea of Gotham being called the home of cico's and murderers.

Besides, if they really wanted women that bad all they had to do was fix themselves up, and get good personalities. Like I did. They would score women right off the bat. But, I think that more than half of them weren't mentally capable of brushing their teeth than wooing women at bars.

I was starting another round when I got a call on the comm. unit.

"What's up?" I asked over it, not exactly sure of who i was speaking to.

"Hey," came Babs voice, "I was just about to head home, and I called to let you know that me and Bruce still haven't cracked it."

"Really?" I asked in disappointment, "I don't know, if two of the world's greatest hackers can't figure it out, then it means something important."

"Aww, you think of me as one of the world's greatest hacker?"

"Hell no, I was talking about me and Bruce," I said grinning. I could hear a sneer on the other end and could practically see her rolling her eyes. "Anyways, are Tim and Stephaine back yet?"

"No, those two never come back before 3. It's normally later, really though, it's like they let out all their anger out during patrolling."

"Are they dating?" I asked cause the signals they were sending were, well, really not clear.

"Eeh, not really, see what happened was that when his relationship was down the toilet with Cassie, he talked to Steph for support, they became close, but she was pregnant, then he left her, then brought her back and I trained her without Bruce, then bruce adopted her, and well, yeah."

"Wow, they have a complicated relationship," I said, "almost as complicated as our's."

"Well, I'm gonna hang up now."

"What?" I teased, "too cool to admit that you still have feelings for me?"

"Get over yourself Dick," she said laughing, "you really need to learn how to be nonchalant."

"Well, it didn't work with Zatanna, it won't work with you, but that aside, I want you at the watchtower tomorrow night."

"Um, may I get why your summoning me to the tower of doom when I don't have monitor duty?"

"You and Wally are going to start with the antidote," I told her and cut the phone line.

I needed them to get started on it as fast as possible. I had gotten a few Leagure's to help them as well, but that would be in the final stages of the cure. And I also needed weapons tech to distribute as fast as possible. I was going insane thinking about what would happen if I _we _didn't get this done soon. It would be bad news.

As I was making a turn, it hit me! I had a mission that may have been happening tonight, and there was only one field agent that could do the job for me the right way. Sadly, she would not be in a very good mood to say the least, and would chop my head off tomorrow. But, I still needed her to do this little favour for me.

I quickly called the number and waited impatiently for 3 rings for a really groggy voice to pick it up, "_hello?"_

"Hey Arty!" I said with fake enthusiasm.

_"You know that it's like 2 in the morning here right?"_ she snaps quickly.

"Well, I didn't know that the world's safety would only be looked after when it was the day time, get your butt up and I've got a job for you. Remember today when I was telling you about the illegal trade happening between North Laurasia and Biayla? Well, turns out that the North Laurasia president had been getting weaponry from LexCorp, and with all that combined, they are getting the apokoliptian weaponry that both Queen Bee and Luthor are slowly increasing the amounts of the weaponry in all of their allied countries. So far, none of those countries are a part of the Justice League UN Charter, but tha can change quickly. I need you to go to Metropolis and try and sneak on the plane and try and see the people involved, as well as get as much information on the kinds of weaponry, and remember that it may also be from New Genesis, oh, and I'll make sure that the bishop will pick you up tomorrow morning."

I waited for a moment before the reply came, _"alright jackass, I'm up, but you are so making this up to me later,"_ and then she hung up leaving me grinning.

I actually had a mission for her tomorrow as well. I knew that this was really unfair towards her, but she was the only person that could do recon for me. Wally and Babs couldn't, and were both stuck in the labs for the next few days easily. M'Gann had her hands full with a emotional team. Kaulder and Connor really weren't much for recon, and I had pretty large roles for them later in the plan. I told the League that we would all take care of it, and that's what I planned to do, but we were all going to tire out pretty soon.

Just as I was planning on heading back, I heard some noise. The next alley down, there were about 15 or 16 guys that were carrying some pretty advanced tech. It wasn't apokoliptian, and there was only group that had access to such high tech stuff without the Light. _Intergang. _

I raced down the stairs that had been conveniently placed right from where I was to where they were standing. All of them had guns, and were pretty big guys. Intergang did have some good traders, but they really still didn't stand a chance. Not in a very cocky mood, I quickly stared taking as many out as I could. At first, there was an initial shock between them. I heard many, _Is that Nightwing? _and _I though he works in Bludhaven, where's Batman?_ and even a _ Do you think that we should run?_

That guy was obviously a rookie, because running was definitely not Intergang's style. At all. But, they were actually a bit better trained than I anticipated. One dodged one of my moves while another striked. It was a pattern that was pretty hard to overcome. As I finally got hold of one, another grabbed me from the back. I was preparing myself for a pretty bad attack, but it never came.

I quickly took advantage of the moment and strikes the first three guys that were right in front of me. Then, I turned to see who had saved me. Quickly, I jumped on a guys back an flipped in the air looking at my savour. I was a bit confused at first. It was a girl!

Okay, I out of all people know some really strong girls. Ones that can kick my butt pretty easily, but she wasn't like them, she looked like a civilian. But then again, it was pretty obvious that looks were never as they seemed. I moved my attention from the girl to taking out these guys.

She was a really good fighter. her style wasn't like the Bat family, but more like Artemis's for some reason. She wasn't using weapons, except for these little coloured things that kept exploding. It was kinda cool actually. But, her fighting style wasn't your everyday blackbelt. She was using some ancient menouvers, which was why the goons didn't know what to expect next. _Was she a Superhero or something?_

With two of us both working, it took 20 minutes to take out all the guys and tie them up. It took longer than expected, but then again, it was 16 vs 2. I quickly called the cops on these guys, and they were pretty surprised to hear from me instead of Batman, but seemed fine either way.

That was when I actually got a chance to look at the girl. She looked about 5'6, but then again, she was wearing these 3 inch black heels that were ankle length boots that were tied up with laces. _How the hell did she just fight in those? _She had long black hair that had red highlights. Her skin tone was a couple tones darker than cauasian so it looked like a natural tan, with freakishly high cheekbones. She was also wearing black tights, with a black shirt that was tied up a bit above her midriff. There was also a thin red belt hanging around her waist. Over it was red and black _varsity jacket_(?). The only indicators that she was a superhero were the black Ray Bans that somehow hadn't fallen off while the fight and a black, short and lacy cape that was attached to her Varsity jacket.

As the police officers started picking up the tied up guys, I finally turned to her.

"Varsity jacket?" I asked not sure what else to say.

"What can I say, I'm still in love with last year's fashion."

'That's cool," I said really not sure where I was going with this. But, she seemed to have a lot to say.

"Hey, you're Nightwing right? Well, it's been a while since you the very first boy wonder was in Gotham, it was fun fighting with you," she said confidently grinning.

"That's great, so … who are you?" I asked.

She turned to look if the police officers and goons were out of the way and to my surprise, took off her glasses to reveal a huge pair of brown eyes. Like the biggest I've every seen.

"Hi, I'm Candi," she said extending her arm out for me to shake.

"So, I'm guessing that you're not a wanna bee hero?"

"You're right," she grinned and put her glasses back on and turned towards the police officers and said, "HI PAUL!"

They all turned to look at her, and grinning replied, "hey Candy!"

Then, turning back at me she said, "About the superhero part."

"And they know your real name? I asked skeptically.

"Nah, they know me as Candi with a y, and I am Candi with an i, it's not an alias, but they don't need to know that."

"Well, it's good to meet you, and if you don't mind me asking, where did you learn to fight like that? And does Batman know that you're in his city?"

"Hm, well I learned to fight like this from the League of Shadows, and yeah, Bats is fine with me patrolling."

Then a million questions circled in my mind. _She's Shadows? Nah, then she wouldn't help me. Bruce is fine with her, that's weird, he hates others patrolling. That explains why I thought she was fighting like Artemis! She sure is blunt…_

Then she looked at her cell phone which had been hiding in her Varsity jacket and gasped, "okay, well it was nice meeting you, but I have work in the morning, here's my number, if you're in Gotham and want help patrolling, then don't hesitate calling. I can tell you more of my past which I know you are really interested in. I've gotta go now bye!" And with that, she just … left. I just stood there like a idiot in shock for a moment until calling the Batmobile to my location.

On the way, I was thinking about the little encounter. It was different that normal meetings with Superheros. For one thing, they were usually not so blunt, and he didn't get so many answers without hardcore interrogation. Finally, after 10 minutes, I reached the cave.

As expected, Bruce hadn't moved an inch from the way I left him. "So, I take you met Candi?" asked Bruce who was Batman, who knew everything.

"Yeah, it was interesting, actually, she was really bluntly honest."

"That's Candi, she's a good kid," came his reply. _She's a good kid? Who is this and what has he done with Bruce Wayne?_ But before I could ask him anything, I got a call. Checking the caller id, it was Artemis. I picked it up and waved to Bruce before transporting to Bludhaven.

But I knew one thing. This time, I wasn't going to go home and research Candi. I was going to let her tell me herself, and _then _research her to see how much she would tell me, a complete stranger.

**Well, you got to meet my OC. Now, I love DC to death, but all of the superheros beat around the bush wayyy too much, so I decided to make her totally blunt! I know, I rock :) anyways, you'll see more of Candi in a couple of chapters, but I have to know, did you love her? Did you hater her? So, I wont update until Saturday or Sunday, so that gives everyone a ton of time to review. I'm serious. I want feedback, and remember that the voting for CassieXTim vs StephaineXTim is still open, so yes, I want more votes. And about Dick, I'm not going to give him a romantic interest in Candi, but I can add him with Babs or Zatanna later, just tell me what you want. Like a one night stand or actual dating, but the romance is mostly going to be decided by the viewers, the rest I have an idea for though. SO, make sure you REVIEW!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Alright, so yeah, I'm a bit late ... -.-" anyways, I really need to figure out who Tim will end up with, so last chapter for voting. So far, it's a tie, so if you want to vote, DO IT NOW! But, since I write ahead, you wont be seeing any of their action together till later :) this chapter is pretty good, Bart mostly. Some action. Not _that _many feelings will be revealed (yet) but I liked writing it. **

**Disclaimer: I sadly don't own YJ or DC or any brands that may possibly be** **mentioned**** (I THOUGHT WE WENT OVER THIS LAST TIME!) **

Chapter Six

3rd POV

Bart sat in corner of the cave's two story library where no-one else could find him. It was pretty hidden away, but none of his teammates ever actually came into the library. He didn't see why the Justice League provided so many books, when there was the internet going around. If you asked him, it was just a colossal waste of paper, but it was there none the less, so why not help Bart?

He had a quiet corner, that was away from the rest of society. The only reason he liked it was because there was also great wifi, and he could blair his music as loud as he wanted, without getting lectures from people about how bad it was for him. Bart was the kind of guy that liked everything either really fast, or really loud, or really exciting. Unlike his mentors, who were normally fine with anything, he really craved excitement, and didn't like to sit still, so even when he was having his own personal 'quiet time', it wasn't normally very quiet.

He had found this little corner of the library when he had first moved to the cave. Most of the others were out on a mission, and he really wanted a place where he could be him and not have to put up an act about the real Bart Allen. This was where he could be his truly jaded self. When he came back from the future, he thought that the exhausted_ness _in him would go away, and he could just become the funny, happy, enthusiastic guy everyone thought he was, but even when changing the future, the things he had seen in the past were a lot to handle. Even for him, so he guessed that no matter how much he tried, he couldn't become totally carefree.

Many other heroes had tried, even in this business. Some only looked at the bright side of things. Others decided that they would be very proud of themselves because they were helping humanity, Wally even retired, so he could live the boring life he oh-so desired. But Bart, he didn't even want to try those things. He had seen everything wrong with the world way too early, and trying to become carefree of everything would be like losing a part of himself. Too bad the others would never know the _real _Bart Allen though.

He had slightly become more like his regular self after moving into the cave though. For a year and a half, he spent his time basically everywhere. At first, the League placed him under Jay and Joan Garret. They were both retired, and well, old. It was nice living with them, and they liked having a kid in the house, but there was always that guilt that he was taking time away from them just being old people and doing old people things. He had been a extra weight on them, and didn't like that one bit.

So, he convinced Barrie to take him in. At first it was great. Both Barrie and Iris were pretty laid back; they were cool. But that completely changed when his father and aunt came along. Two babies in the house with him was very hard. He didn't know how to help take care of kids, and had no patience with them, even if one was his dad. They were annoying quite frankly, and he didn't want to be even more of a burden on his grandparents, so in the end, he finally decided to move into the cave.

It was the best place for someone in his position to be in. There weren't many places to go, and he really didn't have much family that could take him in, so the cave, which was like a teenage feeding home by now, was the best pace where he could be without feeling like a dead weight. Besides, now the rest of his family spoiled him with presents because he didn't live with them, so it was like a win-win situation.

Of-course moving to the cave meant that he was going to Happy Harbor High. The Hornets were very, well, stereotypical high school, and that's kinda what he liked so much about it. It was fun, and well, normal. There was a hot queen bee, and jocks, and nerds, and jerks, and well, the normal nice people. It was funny how most of these people didn't seem real to him. But they were real people, with real lives and everything.

It was really funny walking down the hallways and seeing the graduation pictures. He could see how over the years, M'Gann, and Karen, and Mal, and their friends Wendy and Marvin had all changed. Connor looked the same, but maybe now he was a bit less broody?Just like Connor and M'Gann, he had Lucas Carr as his geography teacher. Only Bart was in his AP class. All Bart's classes were Junior level AP. His potential showed that he could have graduated college by now, with the photographic memory and everything, but he didn't want to take any classes higher that the highest ones in his year. He was in no rush to get a job, and ha the time to live as a teen, so he decided to live like one. It was safe, and easy and for him, pretty fun. Of-course the others on his team disagreed. When Jamie graduated the year before, the guy had practically been doing the happy dance to be out of school. Other than Gar who was his age, the others were all seniors, and seemed pretty happy to be out of high school.

His high school experience, was actually pretty fun. It was defiantly a bit different than some of the others, because he had it so much easier on him, the fact that he didn't have to study that hard. But, he saw the photographic memory as a exaggerated curse. Everyone thought that it was all great, but he had to remember things that quite frankly, no-one wanted to remember, so it wasn't as awesome as the others cut it out to be. Of-course, he couldn't tell them about it.

He sat down with all of his textbooks, because exams were 3 months away. But, just as quickly as he had picked them up, he threw them down on the floor. For his sixteenth birthday, His uncle Barrie and aunt Iris and gotten him a Macbook Air, so nowadays, studying was never in the picture. It was more like laptop-laptop-laptop. But who wouldn't be like that?

As he was logging in, there was a noise, then Cassie appeared out of no-where. She stood there for a moment and raised and eyebrow towards him. _Okay, _so it was a _little _weird. There were a ton of books that were sprawled all around him, but they were all unopened. Instead of the chair that was usually propped up against the wall, he was sitting in the floor where the chair previously was. Now the chair had been moved in front of him, and his feet were crossed on it.

"Do I wanna know?" she asked grinning towards him.

"Hey, this is my quiet area," he clarified gesturing everywhere to show what he meant.

"Right, in the History of Themescara section," she said knowingly.

"This is the History of Themescara section? No wonder no-one is ever over here…" honestly, he knew what section he was in, but it was more _Bart_ to do would be to not know where he even was.

"Well, what are you doing here?" she asked moving the books aside to sit next to him on the floor.

"Eh, well, I was going to study, then my nice old friend laptop here totally distracted me.

"Uh, I have my senior exams coming up too, but unlike you, we can't all wait last minute. Do you even study?" she asked.

"Sometimes, if I don't like the subject, it's eaiser just to read the text book at home and get some nice sleep at school."

"Lucky bastard! Diana, and not to mention my mom, have both been on my back ever since senior year started, they want me to get into college and crap," she said burring her head in her knees.

"Right, so you _don't _want to go to college?"

"I'm Wonder Girl, is it really necessary?" came her reply.

"Well, if maybe one day you decide to retire, don't you wanna have a backup plan?" he asked pretty amused now.

"Everyone that retire's is cause of school," she argued. It was a good point, but anything could happen in the future. He out of all people should understand _that_.

"Well, they are going to force you to go, so good luck," he said just closing the topic.

"Eh, sadly you're right, and I kinda have a 3.8 average, so college is pretty guaranteed, also with the cheerleading, I've got a ton of scouts already."

"See? You may not want college, but it wants you!" he said then thought, "what are you doing in the library though?"

She grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head, "well, lets see, I had a date after like three months, and this morning, I didn't feel like going, so stood him up, but Diana found out, got mad, and banished me in here to study about 'my people'.

He laughed mentally about the though of her ditching someone. He knew everything about that. It was the reason last year, Angelica Sanchez slapped him in front of the whole tenth grade. He didn't want to leave her for that date, but there was a mission that night, and they got a bit … delayed. That wasn't the only time either. It happened so much, that was his new reputation. 'The guy that will stand up everyone.' It wasn't his fault. It was usually a mission. Well, there was this one time when there was a sparring battle going on in the cave, and he got a bit caught in the moment, but that was just once…

"So Diana wanted you to go?"

"Well,she wanted me to go out with someone after the last break-up with Tim. She says I have to 'get over him'," she said putting air quotes over -get over him-.

"Right, that's why you started yelling at Stephanie yesterday at the meeting the whole Leage was attending," he said.

"What does that have to do with Tim? I was yelling because she was being a bitch!" she explained/yelled.

"Right. Cass, hate to break it to you, but Steph's not a bitch, and the only reason you were yelling at her was cause she was helping Tim, and you hate it when they team up don't you?" he said a bit teasingly at the end, "besides, if it was me, or Jamie, or any of the guys that agreed with him, you wouldn't have cared."

That shut her up. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again.

"Just admit it, I'm right, you're not over him," he said, but before she could reply, the cave wide PA system turned on.

"All team members please come down to the mission room for a mission briefing," and it turned off. As they got up, he shot her a look that said, _we're not done talking about this._ But Cassie just rolled her eyes in return.

In the mission briefing room, instead of finding the regular Aqualad and Miss Martain, they found Nightwing and a very pissed Trigress.

"Hey! You had me up all night doing recon in a foreign country, and the minute I come back, you go 'Arty, I have another mission for you'," she steamed, but Nightwing just continued working on the holographic computer.

"Hey Arty! Is that a new haircut? How's Wally? By the way, if you guys are gonna get me a job, that would be totally crash," Bart ran around her. But, Tigress didn't even flinch at the overly excited (as usual) speedster.

"I'm not in the mood Bart," she told him before starting to claw Nightwing again, "YOU really need to get someone else for this mission, I'm out, I've been doing enough recon for you, and this will be a easy mission, just get someone else to go instead!"

"What's up with her?" Cassie asked Nightwing.

"Eh, she's just pissed that sex night has been ruined thanks to moi, and the fact the I'm gonna need Wally tonight," he said grinning. At the comment, she was really ready to kill him, but there was a bright green light that held her back. They all looked over to see Kyle grinning as he held her back. It was a bit weird that he was the one stopping the fight instead of starting it.

"Calm down Tiger! As much I's love to see you rip him up," he said glancing at Nightwing, "I think we should do the mission."

"Oh go bug Troy!" snapped Artemis talking about his girlfriend Donna. It was weird that they worked, but they did somehow.

"Well, it looks like the team's ready," said Nightwing which got everyone's attention. This wasn't a full team, all of them worked separately, and Tigress wasn't on any team because she was on the League, but it was obvious that she was going to be leading.

"We aren't on team," said Cassie, "I don't know if you kno-" but was interrupted by Nightwing.

"M'Gann told me about your new teams, and this is a bit of an emergency, so you guys are going to have to work."

"You're kidding, I get the most destructive ones for a _recon _mission?" asked Tigress looking at three of the on the team. "I mean, no offence guys."

Kyle just shrugged while Bart said, "we can do it Arty, just trust us, what's the mission Nightwing?"

"I'll need you to go to Middleton, Denver. There, you will find a warehouse location on the outskirts of the city that will be getting ready for a move. They are reportedly moving down to Metropolis. It's said that all the apokoliptian weaponry is first transported down to many odd cities before they move down to Metropolis. What we don't know is why. That will be you job. Observe the area and report everything you see."

They all nodded, and started down to the Bioship, but before they left, Nightwing stopped them again, "I hope I don't have to express how important it is that you all stay hidden. _No _un-necessary risks. Anything goes wrong, I want you back. If they find out that we're tracking them, we'll be put behind schedule and our biggest weapon will be compromised," he said in a very scary Batman like voice.

They all nodded again and left, but Tigress looked back for a second. She just shook her head slightly and followed the team.

"So what now boss?" asked Bart as he sat on one seats and faced Tigress.

"You all need to listen to me," she said putting in the location of the controls of the bishop and it took off.

"This mission is a very important part of out plan. It may not seem like it, but trust me, we need the intel, _but _all of your safety is more important," she said staring at all of them.

"We've done this before, we won't get caught," Cassie tried reassuringly.

"No, I've been doing this longer that all of you combined," Tigress said, "and I know that sometimes, you're bound to get caught, or blow a cover. It happens, but I'll need all of you to be careful out there today. If anything happens to either of you, for a first, Nightwing will have my head. For another, it'll blow out cover. This is the biggest we have all ever done, and multiple lives will _always_ be on the line. What I need, is for all of you to keep in mind, that your actions today will effect what the happens to the world tomorrow. It's not about what they think, or what _anyone _thinks. This will bw life and death. Period. Nothing else, so you have gotta keep in mind that what you're going to be doing for the next few months, it won't have a second chances. It won't be like the other missions, and I need you to promos me that you'll be on you guard 24/7 from now on. Don't let _anything _distract you."

All three looked at her seriously. She was really serious. This was going to be affecting everything. All the moves _they _made. This was bigger than the team, even the Justice League. It was the world. It had been in danger before. They had stopped it. But this time, she was right. There would be no second chances. Just instant death. It was going to hurt and bad, but they would need to get over it.

"Artemis," said Bart softly, for once being his true self instead of front he always put on, "I promise that nothing will happen to the world or to us." That was a big promise, but she seemed to believe him. Maybe it was just naivety.

They all rode for the rest of the trip. Mostly because no-one else knew what to say. they were all very caught up in their own thoughts. This was going to be harder than they initially thought, but it was necessary. The information that Nightwing had revealed to them was dangerous. And it was advanced, the Justice League would have a hard time with it, and the team was all way younger, so they would _really _need to get their act together in order to defeat the Light. Hopefully the last time …

"We're here," Tigress announced after half an hour. They all changed their outfits to stealth mode and the bishop dropped them out. "Alright, we're going to split up. Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, you two take the north and east sides, GL and I will take south and west. Do not split up with each other, and don't make any noise. Try and avoid using the comm's unless it's for an emergency, we don't know if they've got the area wired to take in any calls, but knowing the Light, that's probably the case. Meet back here in one hour, by then they will have left, so we'll just watch them leave. Anything suspicious, and take note of it, alright?" they nodded and Wonder Girl and Kid Flash ran the other way.

Using the trees as their cover, Tigress and Green Lantern made their way to the trading area. There wasn't any major villain there that they recognized yet, but there were many guys, and whatever the weaponry was, it was protected heavily. The moving trucks that were going to be used had LexCorp symbols on them. That meant, that there was no way anything was going to happen to the weaponry. Most people didn't know this, but most LexCorp trucks were made from indestructible materials.

This weaponry was going to be safeguarded, but the bigger question was, why was it sent here in the first place? All of the importing happened from Metropolis, and Middleton had nothing to do with anything. It was an odd place to pick, but that's why they were there in the first place.

"Tigress," Green Lantern said softly. She looked at him as he pointed towards something. She looked closer to see that exiting from the warehouse was Icicle Jr, and the Terror twins. They were _still _working for the Light, and by the looks of it, hadn't even moved up the ladder of importance.

They kept watching, as the cargo was all loaded up into the trucks. There was just regular workers, with the three 'supervisors' and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. You know, ordinary in the way all illegal dealing happens.

There was nothing that was going wrong, which really brought up the question, _What was really wrong? _There was a reason that they were going to change the location all of a sudden, and the bigger question was still, _Why did they even choose to come here for the trading?_

On the other side of the warehouse, Cassie and Bart were on their constant alert, but at the same time, pretty bored. There was nothing going on at all. It was pretty empty over here. There were just large crates left un-supervised. It just showed that when you were deep in a forest, and thought that no-one knew about your totally illegal inter-galactic trading, you'd get over-confident. And then sloppy.

"I'm going to see what's in them," said Bart getting up. He was really tired of waiting.

"And _I'm _the irrational one," Cassie said rolling her eyes.

"Look, I have super speed and a photographic memory. I look at the thing, and come back within a second, point is that at east we'll have something to go back with," he argued.

"You know that if the Light keeps everything under surveillance right? You'll get caught, and then Dick will have you're head, so if you're dumb enough to try and do this, then okay, I won't mind going to your funeral, I have this black dress I never get to wear…"

"Well, can you make a good enough fake to give me a second to check. I'll literally need that long," he was now pleading.

"I know less about electronics than you do, and lets face it, even you can't make one that can possibly trick Lex Luthor."

"And Tigress said no comm's unless there's an emergency," he said slumping.

"So, it looks like we're stuck here for a while."

They sat in the dark for another hour, when the trucks were all finally loaded up, and left. It was then dark and completely abandoned. Both groups went up to meet with each other right where they left.

"They abandoned the place, and we got absolutely no explanations about anything, I think that we should go an check the place out, I mean, they won't have the place under surveillance right after they abandoned it. We should see it there's anything in there," Green Lantern said. "Don't underestimate the Light, they think of everything," Tigress said immediately. She was going to make sure everything was safe before any risks were taken. At all.

"But their goon's aren't, the Tupper twins and Icicle Jr have the brain size of a peanut, _combined. _We should check the place out now, just in-case there's anything left," he argued back. Obviously not going to take no for an answer. But two could be stubborn.

"We'll bring some back-up. Then we'll know that the place isn't under surveillance, and it'll be safer."

"What if they return to clean out anything left? WE can do this now, you're being paranoid!" he yelled causing a glare to come shooting through his skull.

Kid Flash and Wonder Girl just stood there watching the argument. Finally, Bart decided to do something.

"Artemis, we can't be sure about anything. I know that you want to be careful, but think about it, when has being careful ever done anything for you? We live with risks, and we accept them, if we go in now, we'll may get some information," he explained calmly. She paused for a second and seemed to think it over.

"Alright, but everyone, be on your guard," they all nodded at her and slowly started to make their way out of the forest and near the warehouse, looking for any cameras on the way. It was really big, and abandoned. There seemed to be nothing there, except for some very human, old tools and some empty crates that were from Earth as well. The crates had LexCorp symbols on them, it was like the whole operation was branded.

Wonder Girl looked around until she saw one different crate. It was made from different wood. It had no symbol on it either. She carefully lifted the lid and started to look inside there was just a metallic sphere, only the size of a small backpack, and it was just plain metal, it didn't open up or anything. Before touching it, she called the other over to see it.

"Guys, come check this out!" They all made their way quickly and Tigress eyed it quickly. This is not from Apokolyps, it's from New Genesis, it's the same type of metal as sphere," she explained. She picked it up carefully and they were pretty surprised what was sitting under it.

"It's a bomb," she confirmed at their gasps. For a second, everything seemed to be in slow motion as everyone though of what to do next. The bomb looked like it had a large range, and there was no way they could disarm it in the remaining 46 seconds.

"Everyone RUN!" Tigress yelled. "I need to stay, get out NOW!"

She held onto the metallic sphere and watched as the rest of the team ran out.

As soon as they got out, and boarded the bishop, they looked back at the warehouse. There was no sign of Tigress anywhere.

The last thing heard was a big BANG!

**Ooh, what will happen to Artemis? What do you think? The next chapter will be Wally so your gonna find out! Yeah, that's right. I don't think I'm evil, so whatever. :D I totally rock (and now I sound super conceited) Anyways, what did you think about Bart? as I said, most of these early chapters are mainly introducing all the characters, and remember this, Middleton is IMPORTANT! I should have the next chapter up this weekend or Friday. Now remember, the last voting for CassieXTimXStephanie is this chapter, and a tie isn't helping me pick, so VOTE! ANd to vote, you'll need to review, so REVIEW! Please?**


	7. Chapter 7

**Alrighty! Well, I'm just a little late on this update, but my life's been pretty busy lately -.-. Exams are coming up soon, and I'm just as worried as the next guy, so I wont guarantee that many updates, sorry. Anyways, I've realized that tons of people say that the plot doesn't really tie together, but here's the deal: IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO! :) Yeah, I know what you're thinking: she's crazy. But, I assure you, I'm not. I'm gonna say this tons of times: the main plot hasn't started yet. I want this to be like life. Literally, I'm not going for a story that follows a specific path, I'm going for life, so tons of random stuff will happen everyday like they do for real people. Our lives don't really follow a path, so thats what's going on here. **

**So, people just remember that all of these loose ends will come together, just pay attention and it'll happen. I'm just trying to get what a ton of characters though about the situation out first. **

**Now, I left the last chapter on a cliff hanger, and I know that it was small, and a pretty bad one, but it was a cliffhanger all the same, and I'm hoping you want to see what will happen next. So, here it is. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own YJ, DC or any possible brands that I love to mention in my stories. **

Chapter Seven

3rd POV

Wally walked into the Watchtower to get his science on. Unlike the others (Artemis, Kaldur, M'Gann, and Connor), he was actually looking forward to helping Dick. That was a big surprise to him, mostly because Wally was usually the one with the hardest job, but this time, Dick had given him a job that was _made _for him. He would be in a lab, trying to make a cure half the time, and on the other side of the lab making gadgets for the team to use on the other. It was heaven. Dick even told him that he would be playing science teacher for the team to make them understand different types of chemicals they'd be facing. It was awesome!

When he got into the Watchtower lab, Barbra was always there. Babs was happy with her job as well. She really wanted to get her hands on some of the team's gadgets for a while, and now was the chance. She and Wally were going to be helping each other, so neither had a huge responsibility on them, and so there would be a change of scenery once in a while.

After years of field work, both realized that they were better suited in the lab. Each had a different path for getting to this point, and it hurt at first. A lot. But as time went by, it got better, and they started seeing the positive side of things. It was fun. Truly. It wasn't like the high and excitement you'd get when fighting bad guys, but this was the excitement of accomplishment. It wasn't like they didn't accomplish a lot by defeating bad guys, but this was more personal. Both found that their love lied within creation. The others, they didn't understand this at all.

Dick and Artemis were both well, destructive. They both had a very firey persona, that ended with them almost enjoying hurting the bad guys. The justice brought was very accomplishing for them. Both Barbra and Wally liked the justice brought and there was always a satisfaction, but they did it as a job, like it had to be done. Dick and Artemis both did it as a job, but also for their own sake. It was like they _needed _it.

"So, I'm guessing that Dick forced you into the whole gadget making thing," Wally asked Barbra grinning.

"Nah, I volunteered, besides, I've wanted to update this tech forever, it seems ancient to me," she said playing around with one of Robin's batarangs.

"Well, I hope that you have a couple of good plans for them, I have no clue wat to do with this crap," he replied looking at the row of everyone's weaponry. It was quite a lot to work with, and they were going to be giving some newer gadgets to everyone so they would have the extra safety precautions.

"Don't worry, I already finished the new designs, and wrote step by step instructions, you're gonna get it perfect, but I hope that you have an idea of what's gonna be done with the cure, we don't have a sample of the pill that they're going to be using, and since it's not fully from Earth, we're gonna have some trouble coming up with the reverse cure," she said sounding pretty stressed.

"Ah, Babs, relax will you?" he said pulling out doe papers that were in the laptop bag he had been carrying with him, "Dick gave the the info he was able to get last time," he finally pulled out one sheet of paper and passed it to her. She looked at it and smirked, "has anyone ever told you that you're a freaking genius?"

"Oh, I know, just tell Arty for me will you? I still get called 'the idiot' at times," which resulted in her just laughing. Then she looked at the sheet again. It had all the Earth element's listed in a row. Then, they had everything they were reactive to, or weakened by written next to it. Then there was a list of all the elements that were not from Earth written right below. Since Wally was, well _Wally, _he had spent a lot of time the year before looking up as many inter-galactic elements the year before. Many of the Leagure's including the Green Lanterns and Hawk's had provided Artemis with the books, and she had passed them to him, so he knew what he was working with. Kind of.

The two got to work. They were working from scratch, so it was a long, slow, and boring process at first. But, they sat there in silence at first, and worked. By the time either spoke again, it was 9:30 in the evening.

"Let's take a break to grab some food," Wally said leaning back. he had very slowly started to mix some of the easier chemicals together, but it had been hard because he had to make sure the amount was right, and make sure that nothing was cancelling out the other.

"Sure," she said putting down Cassie's top. Everyone's clothes were going to be armour proofed, so she was also going to be making some extra compartments to carry the extra weapons that Nightwing said were going to be necessary for everyone to carry on missions from now on.

"Let's zeta to the Hall of Justice, they have the best burgers, plus we won't really have to leave anywhere either then," Barbra said picking up some papers and putting them in the side of her wheel chair as the chair moved without any controls. It was actually really cool the way it worked. She had rigged it so what ever she thought, would go to the top of her spine which was the only part fractured and then, just like the human nevous system, it would send the command to her chair, as if it was a part of her body. It was pure genius and because of it, she was respected everywhere. But, even with all the alterations, she still couldnt walk, but she was working on a model that may be able to in theory work in her body so she could get up and walk again. But it was pure theory that still hadn't been tested.

They made their way to the Hall of Justice. Well, the _new _Hall of Justice. It was built right after the invasion so there would still be a place for them to interact with the rest of the world _on world. _The Watchtower was no secret, but it was still just for Justice League and in space, so for any public events, they needed a place. So, the Hall of Justice was rebuilt. It was basically the same as the last one. There were a few different designs, but overall, it was the same. It was a good place to advertise themselves and over the years, they had gotten more displays. A newer idea was that they put up these cool holograms that had some video's of fights that League members had been through. They were really cool, and this way, since they were just holograms, if the hall was attacked again, there would be less things that would mess up and break.

They zetaed there, and were pretty surprised to see Zatanna just sitting in the waiting area. None of the League members ever really came here unless there was a press conference or something. Normally, it was more of a tourst trap, so when people came here, they just hoped that a League member would stroll by or something. It was like wanting to see the president in a white house tour. Both situations were pretty unlikely. But, there was Zatanna, just sitting there with people why were looking down the glass window looking at here.

"Hey guys!" she said looking up from her phone which was oddly glowing purple. "Hey Zatanna, what are you doing here?" asked Wally.

"Oh, I was supposed to meet Raquel here, but she cancelled last minuet, so I just decided to spend some time here instead of going home, change of scenery you know?" they both nodded in agreement.

"Well, we're gonna get some burgers, so you wanna join?" asked Barbra as her wheelchair moved towards the door joining the public area and the League area.

"Yeah, sure," she said and followed Barbra and Wally out. There was still an hour till the hall closed for the day, so there were still people there. As they came out, and into the open area, people started gasping as they saw them. It was pretty surprising that they were out there. Zatanna was the most popular out of the trio because she actually did field work. Some people were able to recognize Barbra as the Oracle, but Wally wasn't recognized at all.

They went up to the food court and quickly ordered the burgers. The food came pretty quickly, because when there was any League member involved, they made sure to put their order above everything else in the kitchen. It was quite funny actually because if they went anywhere else, it would take forever, but as a Leagure, they were put above priority.

"So, Dick's little plan was quite a shock huh?" said Zatanna as they sat down at one of the tables.

"Oh, it wasn't only a surprise. It's also cico. And genius," said Barbra. Zatanna gave her a weird look and finally said, "so are you guys are dating?" That little comment got Barbra to almost spit out some of her Sprite.

"What? No! We are _not _dating! Like at all! I mean it!"

"But you want to," Zatanna poked even further.

"No," came the quick response, "we may have had a thing in high school, but he's so … _Dick."_

_ "_Good, so you'll be fine to know that we had sex last night," she said calmly.

"YOU DID WHAT?" exploded Barbra which got some stares towards them, "He told me he had 'some work to do', it was really fucking you?"

"Uh huh," said Zatanna sipping her coke. Then, she burst out laughing, "wow, Babs I really had you there! We didn't have sex, don't worry, we haven't even had a full conversation yet," she reassured. Barbra glared at her, then picked up a fry and threw it in her.

Wally sat there and watched two of his oldest friends talk about his best friends personal life. It was quite entertaining actually. Then, suddenly he got a call. Looking at the caller ID, he saw it was Dick.

"Hey Dick, we were just talking about you," but before he could say anything else, Dick cut in, "_Where are you right now?" _his voice was grave which made Wally heart stop. This was the bad news voice.

"What happened?" he asked quickly.

"_Where are you?" _Dick asked again.

"I'm with Babs and Zee at the Hall of Justice," Wally told Dick.

"_Okay, good, come to the Cave ASAP," _Dick said and then hung up. Wally looked confused as hell. Something was wrong, but why was Wally called? Then he remembered. Artemis had gone on a mission tonight!

"Wally, what's wrong?" asked Zatanna as she and Barbra both stared at him confused.

"Dick called me, told me to get to the cave, Arty went on a mission tonight," he explained quickly. The other two got up quickly an fall three ran out of the food court towards the zeta tubes. Wally worked hard keeping his speed in control since they were like the main attractions in a public place.

The zeta tube announced their arrival in the cave and wally felt free to use his speed. He ran into the med bay, hoping as hell that she wasn't in there. But, sadly his intuition was correct. In the bed lay Artemis. There was a thick bandage around her head and her Tigress uniform was ripped up and burned from places. But what scared him was the amount of blood there was on it. There was a lot. Dick was at her side. Cassie, Kyle and Bart were also there. Each looked pretty bruised up, but at least they were _conscious. _

_ "_What the hell happened!?" he fumed, getting more upset by the second. Bart grabbed his arm and pulled him out the door. They dodged Zatanna and Barbra as they were going out. When they got out, there was a scream from the room. Probably because one of them saw the amount of blood. It was a scary amount. Even for them.

"She's going to be fine," were the first words that came out of Bart's mouth. They were a bit reassuring, but not much at the moment.

"What happened?" asked Wally, a bit calmer but he was shaking so hard the floor was staring to vibrate and ware down a bit.

Bart sighed, then went ahead to explain everything.

_Flashback:_

_ "It's a bomb," said Tigress in a bit of a gruff tone, we have thirty seconds, everyone out, I need to get this ball off, it'll give us something to work with."_

_ "We can't leave you!" Wonder Girl argued. _

_ "Out! All of you! Now!" yelled Tigress, "That's an order!" The tone was scary. Un-willingly, the three of them obliged and got out of the warehouse. _

_ Tigress looked at the ball closely. She had 20 seconds to make it out. She tried pulling it off, but that didn't work. Then she saw a little button on the side. She careful examined the button and pushed it towards the right. That was able to get the steel ball off of the bomb, but she only had 10 seconds to get out, so she made a run for it, but on the way out, she ended up getting caught in the debris. _

_ End Flashback. _

"We got here back as fast as possible, and she was checked up and everything. She'll be fine, there was some burns, a few cuts, and the back of her head was a little messed up, but she should end up back in comish by Tuesday, and you know Artemis, she'll probably want to get back to work as soon as she wakes up," Bart told Wally reassuringly.

Wally just took a deep breath. It wasn't as bad as he feared, but _seriously? _She seriously stayed behind to get a little piece of evidence? It wasn't even like she was a meta or had some armour that could save her. Nope. She was just Artemis, just a regular human. She didn't have super speed to run out, or skin as hard as rock that wouldn't burn through her. She didn't even have a ring that would hold up layers of protection. Nope. She was a regular human, that should have been doing regular human things, but nope. She had to go out there and risk her life everyday.

Wally walked back into the med-bay and took a seat in the comfortable chair that was put next to the bed. Black Canary had made sure that, that chair would be very comfortable mostly because the person normally sitting on it would be worried as hell. So it was like a calming factor.

One by one, everyone started to leave. Dick didn't say a word to him the whole time. It was maddening. There were so many people he could blame this on. There was Dick for being so tough and forcing her to go on this mission. There was his cousin for leaving her. There was him, for even letting her come back into this life. But he couldn't just blame this on anyone. It was how being a hero worked. You sacrificed yourself for the greater good. Whatever the greater good even was. It was more like a never ending game of tag. A long, very boring and dangerous game of tag, when good people would get hurt, and others would cheat to win.

He just sat at the bed, and looked at her many wounds. It was a miracle she got out without any long term, or lasting damage. But this was like a warning. A warning that this game was going to be dangerous, and killer. It was like nothing they had ever faced before. He just stared at her, not knowing when he fell asleep.

The next thing he knew, he was being shook awake. He looked up groggily to see the Artemis was awake. She looked better, the circles under her eyes from the night before were gone, and her cheeks had regained some colour. But the blood was still staining her uniform.

"What the hell happened last night?" she asked looking around the room.

"What do you remember?" he asked hoping the explosion hadn't done number on her head. That, would be a issue. A big one.

She rolled her eyes, "I was in Middelton, and had to disable a bomb, as soon as I made a run for it, I heard a boom and the next thing I know is I'm here," she told him what happened the night before.

"You're gonna be fine, and Bart said that you should be back up in a few days," he explained.

"Forget a few days, I need to get back up, I have another mission to go to tonight," she said starting to get up, but Wally pushed her back down.

"No, you need at least two days of bed rest if you want to get back up in 4 days, or you'll be down for a month," he told her sternly.

"Wally, I'm totally fine, I need to go, no-one else can do the job as well as me, we need the information, oh and did Dick get the metal ball from last night? I thought that it was from New Genesis, is it?" she said and got up again.

This time, he pushed her back a little firmly, "This is not up for debate!" he yelled. Artemis looked at him, it was rare for Wally to yell. He was very calm, and thought things through. He got excited, sure, but never raised his voice to yell. When he got mad or sad, he would get really quite. This was definitely new.

"You know Artemis, you were really stupid out there yesterday! You didn't have anything to protect you, and barely half a minute to get out, yet you send out the rest of your team out, and stay be hid to get a little piece of shitty evidence! Something could have seriously went wrong!"

"Well, I'm fine," she said stubbornly.

"Yeah, you had one in a million chance of making it out alive, and were blessed with that one. Next time, you won't be that lucky! Why don't you realize that this, all of this is a suecidal job?"

She glared back at him, the softened her gaze. "Wally, I know that you're worried, but guess what, it needs to be done. Risks need to be taken. You ask why I sent out the rest of the team but stayed behind to get the ball. Well, no matter how much you tell yourself no, we both know that it had to be done. I know this will hurt, but you need to know that we're all pawns. We're all paws in a huge game, and in it, every side will have to lose pawns in order to win. MY life is nothing compared to the greater good. I took that risk to help the team, I was put in that position, and very lucky to have made it out. We will be sacrificed in the end if needed."

Wally looked at her in the eye. He fell back in the seat and hugged her, "I just don't want to lose you," he whispered softly.

"I know," was her simple answer. But, her words were ringing in his ears, _we're all just pawns. We'll be sacrificed in the end if needed._

**Number One thing I want to know is, what do you think 'the Greater Good' is? Everyone has different opinions, and I wanna know yours, so review and tell me. That chapter was just the start of getting Wally mad. I didn't want to rush, so when he explodes, it's gonna be big :) now, for those of you who don't know, Middleton is a city in Denver that MArtain Man Hunter lived in for a while, but he doesn't have anything to do with the plot. That city and the metal ball are both important, so remember them. **

**Now, I ask for this every single time, and this time is no different. I WANT REVIEWS! Seriously, I really want them, the more I get, the more I wanna update so if you wanna see updates, REVIEW!**

**BTW: I still have no clue who Tim will end up with, so even if you have already voted, tell me a good reason of why you think he should be with whoever you want them to be with and come up with another person for the other person to be left with, and if it convinces me, I'll use it. If someone really doesn't telll me, trust me, I'll write all three of them depressing stories, which I can do really well at!**

**So, again, REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Alright, well here's the next chapter, and it'll be in the POV of out favourite Green Lantern, KYLE RAYNER! Okay, it's actually not that good, but whatever -.- Anyways, it's summative month, then exams, so I have been getting like 0 writing done :'( anyways, I will be getting slower and slower...sorry. BUT, for now, I have another chapter up, and I really hope that you'll like it. Quite frankly, I dint think this was my best work, but whatever. Hope you like it though :)**

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Young Justice! (Seriously, this is starting to get painful)**

Chapter Eight

Kyle POV

I was in the training room at the cave, punching the hell out of a dummy. I was a strong Green Lantern, no doubt about it, but Dick's new rules included getting fit without any powers, so I was working my butt off, dummy after dummy. It was painful really, knowing that I could have squished the thing with my ring, but I wasn't allowed to use it. But, it made sense. I needed to be ready to fight without the ring, and when fighting Sinestro Corps, knowing hand to hand combat was useful. Thankfully, I was pretty strong. No where near Artemis or Dick's level, but within the meta's my combat skills were pretty good.

This new schedule thing Dick had us all working with was pretty hard. It took a lot of hard work living up to his expectations, but I think that it was worth it. Ever since he came back, all of us were running around like chickens without their heads. Totally blind. It was especially hard on the seniors. I knew that M'Gann was trying to be nice to the team and get us to do the work, but it was hard, with all of them in emotional dumps and the timing was the worst because many had their exams coming up. I remembered how important my high school exams had been. These kids were working hard to get everything under control. M'Gann was being forced to play mommy and make them eat their vegetables (quite literally).

Artemis had already been able to get herself in a hospital bed. I didn't know Artemis that well, but I heard all the rumour's going around about Tigress. She took risks, she was really scary, and very impulsive. She didn't let small things like bombs stop her when she was determined. Maybe growing up with the shadows did something to help with her impulsive nature, but she was very stubborn.

This had been the first time he worked with her, and he could tell there was a personality difference. She was telling them to be careful. She was taking precautions. It was obvious she was worried. They all were. All the seniors, no matter what tough face they put up, were really terrified. The rest of the team didn't see it. they were younger, and saw these guys as their hero's, almost like the Justice League, they were the founders of the team. They were really good at what they did. But, they were also scared. Scared of the responsibility that was suddenly given to them.

Wally had been furious when he saw Artemis lying in the hospital, but there was a fear in his eyes. It was a dangerous fear that had seemed to embed itself deep into all of their eyes. It wasn't going to go away any time soon, but it was possibly going to get worse. Wally was helping with everything Science. From what I heard, he was living at the Watchtower trying to finish the cure. Soon enough, all of our lives were going to be in that cure's hands. We all trusted him, but as time passed, it seemed like he didn't trust himself anymore. Having so many lives in your hands was a huge responsibility, that no-one wanted to have. But, someone needed to carry that burden. For the greater good.

So far, these three had their hands full, but the worse was definitely Dick. The guy was the same age as me, but he seemed so much older. I never saw him relax. He was always working. His witty sarcasm as a teenager was long gone. Now, there seemed to just be a serious guy that always seemed to think about the job, and would do anything to get it done. He was turning into Bruce, without realizing it, and quite frankly, it was scary.

The rest of the team didn't know, but I knew Dick for a long time. Right after he left, I had found the ring. I was new to crime fighting, and very inexperienced. I was visiting a cousin that lived in Bludhaven, when I was in a alley and there were some idiots that were blackmailing a guy for cash. I knew that I had to do something, so I went to help the guy, but as a Green Lantern. There were a lot of the guys, and they were starting to take me down. Until Nightwing showed up and saved my ass. I don't know how, but he seemed to trust me enough to take me back to his apartment.

He got some liquor out, and we just started talking. I was new on the team, and right out of high school. He had just left the team and was out of touch with all of them. To top it off, his best friend had just died. It was a fucking angst story of our lives. So, as his liquor started running out, we let out our deepest darkest stories. One by one, everything was out. By now, I knew his identity, and his biggest fear. Becoming like Bruce. When he was younger, he was nothing like Bruce and cared immensely for the team. Now, it was more like he would do anything for the sake of the mission.

I was a guy that had no clue what to do with his life ned, an due was a guy that had figured that very question out way to early. We were opposites, and even being totally drunk, we understood that. But, that was made us instantly become friends.

By morning, we were both painfully sober. Now, I knew that this guy was almost 20 and unlike most twenty year olds, he didn't party or get wasted, or worry about school. He locked himself in his house and hacked into some of the world's toughest corporations in order to save the world. What was even worse was that he did it alone. So, the next day, I promised not to tell anyone about meeting him, but also said that I would visit daily to give him a dose of the outside world. We became friends that way.

As time passed, I kept visiting him every month or so. I got better at what I did, and he got more information. We were both excelling, but changing as well. I was very rash and impulsive in high school, a jerk too, but slowly, I was becoming a more level-headed calm person. Dick on the there hand was moving backwards. Instead of calming as he found the information, he was becoming more and more obsessed with finding answers. As time passed, he started risking everything he had for the mission.

When I brought this up to him, he totally denied it and said that the information he got was crucial for the world, and he couldn't think about himself at a time like this. What he said was true, but what was scaring me was that now, he was willing to put other lives on the line to get what he wanted. He would sacrifice everything to win this little game, and the fact that he was sending Artemis on more missions even though his best friend threatened him on his life was proving so.

When Artemis woke up, the team had been gathered up in her room, but Wally had already left. It was really weird that he left he side at all, but when we asked Artemis, she just said that he needed some time alone. So, Dick of-course went to find Wally. I was walking down the hallway, and had been able to get parts of their conversation.

It sounded like Dick was trying to explain himself to Wally, and how what Artemis had done was for the good of the team, but he didn't want to hear it at all. Wally was yelling at Dick, and of-course, Dick was defending himself. In the end, Wally just said that if anything happened to Artemis, then he would't let Dick see the next day and stomped off. What was scary, was that he hadn't yelled this. No, he had said it in a calm, cool voice which was probably the reason I felt a chill go up my spine hearing that. The guy was obviously serious.

But, the next day, Artemis got out of bed saying that she felt fine, and asked Dick for a mission. He gave it to her in a second, and both said it was for the _greater good_. What I really didn't understand was what the hell the 'greater good' really was, but Wally just left, and apparently ever since, he had been living in the Watchtower.

Our main training hadn't started yet, mostly because no matter what Artemis said, she was fit to train us yet. She was doing missions, but what we were going to be learning was really tough, so even Dick put his foot down at that. She wasn't happy though, and Dick was crabby that we could't start the training, so he was constantly forcing us to train during our free time.

Today was Monday, so Artemis would finally be able to start training us tomorrow. Sadly, I was free all Monday, and because Dick wanted all of our schedules, I was stuck in training all day. Alone. The kids all had school, so they wouldn't be joining me until four in the afternoon. I kept at the punching bag for another hour or so when I was finally joined by someone.

"Hey baby, how's the training going?" asked Troia flying in next to me.

"Oh, hey Donna," I said kissing her cheek.

"So, I know that Dick's got all of you working you butt off, so I brought you a muffin," she said handing it to me grinning. I looked inside, happy that I was going to be having some real food instead of the flaxseed oil that Dick was making us all eat, but after seeing what was in the bag, I groaned. It was a muffin sure, but it was whole grain, and looked really dense and a ugly dark brown colour.

"You couldn't have gotten me a regal muffin could you?" I asked deflated at the concept of more whole wheat.

"Sorry babe, but Nightwing gave the entire League a copy of all of your new training schedules and health food restrictions, and basically made us all swear not to give you anything so I can't help your thirst for junk food, sorry," she said taking out the muffin and thrusting it in my direction. I scowled and took a bite.

"It's freaking dense!" I complained, "you try!"

She just raised an eye brow and grabbed it out of my hand, "Well, it's dense, but it's still pretty good, you need to eat to keep your strength up, plus you can't really turn down a gift from me now can you?" She asked flirtatiously. I inwardly groaned, knowing that she would get what she wanted in the end so sucked it up and bit the darn thing.

"Oh quit scowling, a pissed Kyle turns me on," she said pushing my shoulder a bit.

"How the hell are you a amazon again?" I asked thinking of her mentor who had way too much self pride to say anything like that to a man.

"Wasn't born one, plus all of us can't be as boring as Diana," she pointed out, "and I wouldn't be much fun if I was like her now would I?"

I grinned and grabbed her waist, "Oh, trust me, your fine just the way you are," she instantly started kissing my jaw, and since we were totally alone, we would have went further, but that's what I thought.

"Ahem," came a cough from the door. We both turned to see Cassie standing there with a 'I'm not amused' look on her face. "Donna, you're like a sister to me, and Rayner, we work together, so I really don't want to see what you do during your personal time."

"What do you want Cassie? Aren't you supposed to be in school on the other side of the country?" asked an annoyed Donna. I grinned and rubbed her back for the comfort she needed after not getting what she wanted.

"Umm, it's Monday, we were supposed to visit Diana at the Hall of Justice, cause she's gonna take us to Themescara," reminded a now amused Cassie.

"Dammit, I forgot about that, well, I guess we have to leave," she said flying over to Cassie, "bye babe," was all she said before both flew away.

I grinned watching in amusement as the two of them left. Checking my cell phone, I realized that there was only an hour before the others were supposed to get here, so I just decided to take a break and went to the kitchen where I took out my sketch book.

This was my personal hobby. I designed different kinds of rooms when there was no special project to work on. Right now, I had just finished the exams for undergrad, and in August was supposed to start training in a specialized Interior decorating class.

No-one really thought of me as a design person. I had a very bad attitude for starters, and wasn't afraid to tell everyone. Being blunt was just one of my many qualities. In high school, I was the known jerk, and didn't care about it. It was fun while it lasted, and saying whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted was just a good way of avoiding drama. I wouldn't lie to anyone's face, or spread gossip. It was the best thing to do.

Sitting there, I worked on a room that I had been working on for a while. It was all done in different shades of blue, and only blue. It was interesting only using blue, black and white. After a while of working, I finally heard someone come into the kitchen.

M'Gann was levitating two huge bags of groceries and actually carrying her purse. She rushed in and finally set them down. I went back to my picture, hoping she wouldn't need help.

"Kyle, aren't you going to offer to help?" she asked and quickly started unloading the bags.

"I wasn't planning on it," I admitted sheepishly.

"Well, I'm telling you, get your ass up and help me."

I nodded and got up to help with the un-loading as we were half ways done, M'Gann's comm went on.

"Hello?"asked M'Gann starting to organize our really messy fridge. "Wait, Dick slow down … no … I'm busy … no! Kid, what do you not understand about NO! … Listen, I have enough work on my hands, there is no way that I'm gonna … Are you kidding? Goodbye!" and she hung up the phone.

"Woah, what the hell was that about?" I asked finishing the rest of the work because she was busy hitting her head on the island repeatedly.

"Dick wanted me to help Artemis with her latest mission, but I have so much work here, and the training, and dinner, and I can't leave!"

I just stood there, a little awkwardly. "Well, I'm not sure what to say," I told her directly.

"Uh, this had to be the time I was stuck with the most straightforward, un-helpful teammate, I mean, even TIm's better than you" she said, "no offence."

"None taken," I said simply shrugging it off. It wasn't the first time I had that coming, and Donna was the only person that I ever decided to help out or care about, so I wasn't shocked, or surprised, or well, hurt. It was simple, I didn't waste my time thinking about little things, when the world was so much bigger. The only little details I ever decided to pay attention to were the ones in my art. Other than that, they are pretty useless.

M'Gann looked like she was going to have a total break down. it wasn't normally like her to be like this, but what happened was that lately, she and Kalder had both been a little busy. Normally when both of them went psycho, Connor would reluctantly take over, but lately, we hadn't seen Connor at all. Kalder had been gone a lot as well. That left a very disgruntled M'Gann totally in charge of a bunch of hormonal, somewhat violent teenagers. And me. So, she was going to totally live through this and not get permanently scarred for life. NOT!

"Okay, so how about, you take a day off?" I said pulling her away from the island and pushing her towards the door out.

"WHAT? Kyle, are you insane! I have so much work to do! And there's the training, and cleaning, and dinner! I can't just LEAVE!"

"Well, Wally's coming over for the chem training today, so you won't be needed, with Wally will probably come Artemis who I can probably bribe into making the team clean up a bit around here," I told her, "You'll have the work done, and get the day off."

"Right, well, you may have forgotten about dinner," she said walking back into the kitchen, "the team eats like wolves, and then there's Bart… plus since Cassie's not here, and Stephanie and Babs are gonna have a dinner, the guys thought it would be fun to have a guy's movie night, so I need to get the food ready."

"Yeah, well, we can always borrow some cash from Bats and order in some pizza, or go into town and grab dinner or something, plus, you shouldn't have to stay here just to make us food," I told her. She looked un-sure at first, then realized that opportunites like this only came along once in a while, and if she didn't grab this, she would be in a hospital bed by the end of the week.

"Alright, but when I'm back, I want all the work done," and with that she grabbed her purse and went off.

I sighed at her state and went back to my sketch book. Within 40 minutes, all the guys were in the kitchen. Well, except Connor and Kalder. They were loud, and if you looked at them without the hero get-up, they were just senior high school students. Totally arrogant, and conceited, but pretty harmless and could give you a bloody nose at worse.

We all reluctantly made our way down to the training room, to get instructed by Wally on the boring chem stuff. Truthfully, there was a reason I only took Science until grade ten. I sucked at it, I suck at it, I will always suck at it. Mostly because it's boring and probably going to kill me one day, so even if the clown of the team was teaching, I was going to fall asleep no matter what.

Once we were all in the hall, I realized that Wally wasn't going to be teaching us anything. He was there, but also were two very muddy leaders (and I'm not talking about M'Gann) and Nightwing.

"Well, I'm sorry to say that today's class won't be able to happen, mostly because Clayface had apparently turned himself into some sort of super glue mud, and is working with the Light, so Wally will be needed to figure this stuff out," Nightwing explained, actually sounding pretty sorry. "You will all have tonight off, but starting tomorrow mooring, you will all be here for training with Artemis," he said and sent us off. But as the rest of the guys walked off, I stayed behind, knowing that there was more to this story than Nightwing was letting on.

I walked over to Kalder and Connor and asked, "what the hell really happened?"

"Ask him," replied Connor motioning towards Nighting while he sounded just the slightest little bit angry. Okay no, the guy was boiling.

I went over to Dick and hesitantly asked, "Dick, what happened?"

He looked over at me and didm't reply for a second. Then finally said, "Jason."

"Your dead brother?"

"The one and only."

"What about him?"

"He's back."

**MUHAHAHA! At this ****moment, I totally loved myself! Now, let me clear a few things up. One, I personally like Donna better with Roy, and Kyle with Jen, but I also love Donna, and really wanted her, so I put her with her ex :D Yeah, if you don't ship them, I wont have that much of their romantic lives, so don't worry. Two, you finally got a look at my version of Kyle's background. Trust me, this guys more powerful than he seems. And yes, he knows Dick, that was why I added him in the first place. You'll see more later. Three, I dont' know...umm, I think a few may have a couple of questions about the revelation of JASON TODD! Yeah, well he wont be actually make an appearance until like chapter 16 :) yup, I'm totally evil, but I've been called worse, so NO WORRIES! **

**Now, this is a frinkin ritual I follow, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference, but here I go again, YOU NEED TO REVIEW OR I WILL HUNT EVERYONE DOWN! Okay, no I wont do that, but seriously, I get a lot of reads, but like NO reviews, so then I think, is it bad? Cause if it is, I wanna know how I can fix it, through review...so please be the better person and review. PLease? (BTW, special shout out to turquoiserainlilies who leaves me the BEST reviews!)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Letting you know now, this isn't the most eventful chapter, but there's one important thing that happens. You'll see it soon enough. Oh, and sorry for the late update, but I've been sick...and busy with exams...plus there's like family stuff going on. In the end, I decided to screw all that and focus on FanFiction! :D Okay, so sadly I wont get that many updates throughout the months of May and June cause of school crap -_- oh, and let me take a second to complain about how idiots take breaks bettween seasons in EVERY SHOW OUT THERE for the summer. I mean, thats the time we get to truly fangirl, but they leave us in the dark. Okay, I'm done now. **

**DISCLAIMER: I DONT OWN YOUNG JUSTICE!**

Chapter Nine

3rd POV

"Move it people!" yelled a scary voice from the front of the room, "you have 30 seconds to finish this exercise!"

The team was running low on breath, all of their gadgets were taken away and they weren't allowed to use any super powers. This was to test their endurance, and had been at it for four hours straight. Pain and adrenalin soared through their bodies as they started to wish that Tigress would fall off the face of the Earth right about now.

At the front of the room stood Tigress, who was yelling at them and critiquing them ever step of the way. More like criticizing them individually when ever she could. Beside her stood Nightwing, who wasn't even watching properly and was doing some work on the holo screen. Miss Martian looked sorry for them, but was just standing next to Tigress, arms crossed. Superboy and Aqualad were MIA for the whole thing.

"Virgil, get up! Jamie, stay focused! Cassie your running behind!" boomed Artemis voice. "You have 20 seconds in counting, I want everyone at the end of the course by then!"

Suddenly, the zeta tube went off, "_Recognized Red Arrow 21, Recognized Lian Harper A-14."_

The kids were too busy trying to finish the damn course to even realize who had just appeared, so the only awknoledgement Roy got was a grunt from Nightwing, a wave from Miss Martian, and a 'hey' from Tigress.

Well, I see that you haven't changed one bit, still yelling around orders?" asked Roy looking at Tigress.

"What can I say? I have a gift in training, and I use it to the best of my abilities, besides I may be a little harsh, but it's for their own good," she said then yelled, "TEN SEONDS, YOUR ON THE CLOCK!"

"Run, run!" squealed Lian giggling. She was an adorable little 4 year old, who had her hair up in pony tails and wore little pink dresses. But like the rest of her family, Lian found a lot of amusement in any forms of fighting.

"Aaw, Lian, you like what Auntie Arty has the team doing?" Tigress cooed ruffling her hair.

"Yep, ze team is run!"

"I love how she's so excited by all this, and knowing Jade, she's probably started training her by now," Tigress said looking at Roy.

He just grimaced, "well, Jade has been doing some undercover work lately, don't even know who it's for, but it has something to do with Cadmus, so she's been gone a lot lately, and the last time she called was a week ago saying that she was 'detained' in Bialaya. I know Queen Bee has something to do with it, but I'm not sure what, or even how she's doing."

"Don't worry Roy, Jade knows how to handle herself, but you should really be worrying more about Lain, she needs you there more now that she's missing one parent," Tigress said looking at the kid, then blew her whistle, "Alright! Time's up! Everyone hit the showers, and we're gonna have an extra hour's lesson, so come right back!" The team walked away grumbling, and probably cursing Tigress under their breaths.

"Well, I guess they don't know that you won't be teaching the next little lesson," said Nightwing who had finally peeled himself off his computer.

"You sure you up for this?" asked Tigress taking off her mask looking at Roy.

"I am. Even if I wasn't, even you don't know enough about the shadows to beat them, I'm the only one who can do that easily," he told Artemis, "so I'm the only one who can teach them how."

"Well, Roy, maybe you should hold back a bit on them today. Arty here has exhausted them, and I don't want to deal with grumpy teenagers when you two go home, and I have to feed them," M'Gann told him.

"Hey, Roy is the new member coming today?" asked Artemis suddenly. M'Gann and Nightwing both knew about her, but the rest of the team had no idea about any new member.

As the kids came back out, the lesson began. It went on for an hour, when M'Gann finally decided to stop it. They had been at the training for 5 hours straight. It was nine in the evening, and they still hadn't had dinner.

"Alright guys, how about we all go and have dinner?" she asked hoping to get some hopes up. Normally, they would have jumped at the idea of dinner, but the sucky thing was that they would probably be eating boiled asparagus, without salt and plain tasteless tofu.

They slowly made their way over to the kitchen, when M'Gann started placing all the food and plates on the table. Normally, she would have waned help, but the kids were all exhausted. They weren't even _arguing. _For the team, everyone had figured out a long time ago that they didn't talk, they argued. It was pretty amusing actually, except for when they were saying the stupidest things, and talking for the sake of talking.

But, this wasn't a comfortable silence, like when they had those 'team study hall' times. No, this was more like 'my ass is killing me because I just went through the toughest mist tiring day of my life, and I want to be left alone'. M'Gann wanted to make them feel better, but what the hell was she supposed to tell Dick? They all needed to know all this, but the food, was it really necessary?

"Alright guys, after dinner, how about I go and get some cake? It'll be nice, but only if you get up and have a little fun," she knew that Dick was going to kill her, but they weren't exactly seeing eye to eye on everything at the moment.

"Sorry M'Gann," said Virgil, "but we all have exams and stuff, so we're just a little tired, so that's the only reason we're so tired," he told her reading a textbook he had pulled out of no-where.

"Alright, I know that Dick has been pushing you a little hard but-"

"A little?" asked Tim, "Try take over. He comes out of no-where and suddenly he's ruling over the team, even giving you, Kalder, Connor, and Artemis work like he's your boss or something. Hell, he even got Wally back!"

"Tim, I know you don't like how he's taking charge-"

"No!" he said sarcastically.

"But, what he's doing is necessary. It's for the betterment of the world."

"Has anyone even taken the time to ask where he's getting this information?" he asked shocking everyone. In all honesty, no-one dared to even think that. He was Nightwing. Dick Greyson, the first boy wonder. He wasn't supposed to be questioned.

"So what, you think that he's making this all up? Or working for the Light?" asked M'Gann keeping her cool.

"Look, I don't know, but this isn't the guy that we all knew three years ago."

Suddenly, Kyle got up and waled out of the room. No-one really noticed, because they were too busy watching the little show down going on between M'gann an Tim.

"You know what Tim? I think that you're just acting up to get attention," came Stephanie's voice. M'Gann cringed. When ever Cassie, Stephaine or Tim ever said anything that may lead to anther argument, the other two would pounce in them. It was like a three way war, that wasn't very good for the team.

"Who the hell asked you?" replied Tim, "you didn't even know the guy."

"Well, the rest of us did," butt in Cassie, "and we don't think that your little hero changed all that much. He's just a tough ass like you, only he admit's it."

"Wow Cassie, seriously? That the best you got?" asked Tim tauntingly, "cause, you were complaining the most out of all of us when we were training, and now your taking Dick's side."

"I'm not taking anyone's side, I'm just saying that you're over-reacting, like usual," he replied fiercely.

"You two are so immature, just admit that you're jealous that Dick's back to take all of Bruce's attention," Stephaine said looking at Tim.

"Where the hell did you make _that _up?"

"Well, let's face facts, Bruce has been in a better mood since he came back, plus he's been working on everything Dick's told him to do, and there's also the batmobile incident…"

"What about you?" countered Tim.

"Oh please, I never got Bruce's attention, never will, but you on the other hand, ooh, not the luckiest wonder boy are you?"

"You two need to shut the fuck about all your family issues," said Cassie who looked like she was going to punch something. Hard. Jamie bravely grabbed her wrist and muttered, "calm down Cass," that was able to cool her off a little.

M'Gann then started to take charge, "alright guys, enough arguing, or I'll personally make sure that you have an extra hour of training tomorrow," knowing that they wouldn't listen if she said anything nicely.

Tim grumbled something under his breath, and stomped out of the room, but by the door, he passed Roy, Artemis, and surprisingly Green Arrow with a girl next to him.

Before anyone said anything about him, they saw the girl that was standing next to Green Arrow. She was blond and blue eyed, like Cassie and Stephaine, but her long hair was kept in a pony tail. Unlike the two girls, she didn't have the cute look, with pretty little cardigans and skirts. She was wearing a big hoodie and jeans with high tops. her hair was in a low ponytail. In a lot of ways, she resembled Artemis.

"Team, meet Mia Dearden, also known as your new Speedy," Green Arrow told them. Everyone was pretty shocked. they didn't even know that Oliver had anther side kick. After Roy, Artemis and the other Roy, it seemed like he had given up.

"So, guys I want you to be nice, and she's going to have dinner with you," said Artemis and then she walked out of the room with Roy and Ollie. But Lian came running in out of no-where. She went straight to Mia and hugger her leg.

Bart was the first to get to her, and said, "WE-ELCOME! to the cave, I'm Bart aka Kid Flash!"

"Um, it's nice you meet you," she replied grinning.

The team took turns introducing themselves and everyone sat down for dinner. Suddenly they all seemed a little more enthusiastic. It's like taking a load off of M'Gann. Droopy teenagers weren't fun at all, and it was quite annoying.

Then, she realized that Kyle wasn't back yet, so grabbed her plate and went to the mission room, where Kyle was talking to Artemis and Roy.

"Guys, whats up?"M'Gann asked knowing that there was something going on.

"Well, Jason Todd is taking over a lot of the Gotham underworld work. He's really been working on it," replied Dick. M'Gann already knew about Jason, but she didn't think that he'd come back and start to take over the underworld. This was working pretty quickly, and it seemed like this time, Jason actually had a plan unlike the feisty kid they knew and kinda liked.

"Well, he's working with the Light, so there as to be some sort of connection between everything, we should wait for a while, and see what happens next," said Artemis.

"Agreed, but M'Gann, you're going to need one of your squads to be prepared at all times in case if we need any help in Gotham, so try and keep them organized," Dick said and M'Gann nodded. It wouldn't be _that_ hard keeping one of the squads near zeta tubes at all times. She would need to talk to the team … again.

Nightwing left, as well as Artemis and Roy who would pick Lian up later. M'Gann and Kyle went back to the kitchen. There, everyone was listening to Bart speak, which normally didn't happen as they usually ignored half the things he said.

"Okay, so a friend of mine is having a house party for his graduation on Friday, so he told me to invite as many people as I wasn't, so you guys wanna come?"

"Yeah, who is the guy?" asked Cassie who seemed just a little protective with the parties she went to.

"Oh, he's a total jock, y'know like the big guy with blond hair and tanned skin, all the girls love him, some guys even do, and the only reason we're friends is that he's nice towards us regular folk, and I may have a tiny little crush on his girlfriend," he said which got everyone to face palm.

"I am in, besides Zatanna made me a charmed spell like the one Arty used, but it'll make the others see me as a normal kid, it's a bracelet or something," Beast Boy said immediately. He liked any reason to get out of the cave, and what was better than going and getting drunk at a jock's place?

"Gar," came M'Gann's voice, "make sure you don't get _too _drunk, cause I know that all of you will," she looked at everyone, "just remember that most of you have mets powers, and can be extremely dangerous this way, and I really can't tell you not to go, and if you go, you'll get drunk," she said exactly.

"Well, I technically _can't _get drunk, my metabolism won't allow it, unless if Anderw's friends with Batman and gets that alcohol that Barrie or Wally sometimes use, so I'll watch out for them," Bart said gleefully.

"Alright, but if any of you causes any problem, I'll make sure you're cleaning dishes ever Friday night from now," she warned and went off into her own room to try and get a little sleep before the 5AM wake up call.

"SO who's in?" asked Bart looking at everyone again.

Slowly, most of the guys murmured their yeses, and that left 3 undecided girls and one older guy.

"Kyle?" asked Bart, already knowing the answer though.

He looked up from his sketch book and raised an eyebrow, "there's no way I'm going to a junior party," he said looking around at the teenagers, "have fun getting totally wasted and drunk though."

"Mia?" bart asked hopefully, "c'mon, it'll be fun!"

"Yea, sure why not?" came her reply grinning.

"Yeah, I'm in," said Stephaine. Cassie looked undecided. Finally Bart asked, "What's wrong Cassie?"

"I'll come too," she replied getting a cheer from the guys and a look from Stephaine.

"Great, I'll also talk to Tim, and everyone meet here at lets say 7ish, and Anderw doesn't live that far, so we can walk, oh, and don't bring anything you have an intention of keeping," Bart told them.

"Great, um, I've gotta go now, Jamie, walk me to the zeta tube?" Cassie asked hopefully.

"Um, yeah sure," he replied, unsure of what Cassie wanted exactly. Once they were out of the room, she finally asked, "do you trust Mia?"

"We just met her," he pointed out, "besides, she didn't say much in the room."

"I know, it seems like she's hiding something."

"Umm, yeah, she's probably hiding _a lot _of things, as I said, we just met her," he replied again. She didn't look convinced though, "look, chica, ever since Steph, you've been pretty suspicious of ever girl, just don't push this one already, besides, Stephaine's cool, you just don't like her because she lives with Tim," he pointed out.

"What? That is NOT the reason!" she said indignantly, "I don't like it because she's a total bitch and always looking for a fight!"

"Um, no to really," he replied earning a glare, "look, my point is that you need to relax, and stop making so many wild conclusions," he put his hands on her shoulders and literally pushed her into the zeta tube.

**Alright, so that was probably the most un-eventful chapter EVER! I know, most of you expected to see Jason, but you see, I really like Jason, so when he shows up, there will be a boom. Not kidding, I'll make sure he gets a total HUGE welcome. :) Now, onto Mia, I've realized that most stories for Young Justice, if they use another archer, it's usually Cissie, but truthfully, I like Mia better, and I think that if she and Bart got to spend a little more time together, there would be a spark there. Mia is also added because of her...personal problems. It's good to have a character like that once in a while. Now, they mentioned party, so there will be a party chapter, but it will be a bit different than expected. There's a reason I wanted to have it like that. **

**Now, I ask for this every time, and say that every time, but please review! It takes two seconds to type something small in, and I'll really like it!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hi everyone! So, I'm back for another chapter and is fully based on: THE BAT FAMILY! Yeah! Anyways, ****this is a Dick chapter, not that important, but fun anyways. :)**

**Disclaimer: I Empress Pyrus, do NOT own Young Justice or any of the brands I may or may not have mentioned. **

Chapter Ten

Dick POV

I stood outside the Wayne Manor, for what felt like years. It was just as big as I remembered. huge. The tall turrents, and frikin' HUGE wooden maple door. The gardens were just as neat, and the porch just as clean as I had left them.

This place hadn't changed for generations. And wouldn't change after that. Not after Alfred and Bruce. Even Tim and Damian. Nope. This place was going to be here, and honour the Bat-family and Wayne legacy forever.

I held a bouquet of flowers and ringed the ginormous doorbell. Moments later, Alfred opened the door.

"Welcome, Master Richard!" he said leading me in. I can't believe this place used to be my house. I lived here, for years, and now I was being treated like a guest in my own house.

"Go to the dining hall, Mater Bruce is already there, and Miss Gordon will be arriving shortly," he told me and took the bouquet. I just flung my jacket on the couch, like I used to do. That drove Alfred _nuts. _He'd get really pissed, and that was the beauty of it. It worked when I was 10, and I intended for it to work when I'm 22.

Leaving my coat on the couch, I made my way over to the dining hall. It wasn't used as a family very often. Mostly because we never had dinner together. When I first moved in, it was usually just me and Alfred. It was nice having him, but the two of us would get bored no matter how much he hates to admit it.

When I moved out, it was just Jason. Then it was just Tim. Now, there were three kids in the house, so it must drive Bruce crazy with the amount of noise. He didn't even like it when I played music, let alone three very irritable kids. Then again, they were all in the bat-family, so when they were told to be quite, they were quiet.

Inside the dining hall, Bruce was sitting there, with his phone shoved in his face. I knew he was only there because Alfred made sure that he wasn't late again. Bruce was rarely late for anything, except dinner. It was like this guy didn't care about food. The only way he ever made it here on time was if it was Christmas, when Alfred took away most of his electronics, and Thanksgiving when there a huge feast when he died to eat. Other than that, he was rarely here on time.

"Hi Bruce," I said sitting at the seat right of him. Surprisingly, we were the only ones here, when Bruce said 8:30, I knew to be here at 8:15, and Barbra had League business, so she called saying that she was going to be late. But, it was 8:26, and the kids that lived here still hadn't arrived.

Finally, Barbra showed up, and she was right on time as well. I decided not to ask where the others were, but did laugh when Alfred took Bruce's phone away. The kids all arrived one by one, and took their sweet time settling down.

The first to arrive was that youngest, "Grayson," he greeted me taking a seat opposite from mine, next to Barbra.

"Wayne," I greeted him back grinning. This was definitely Bruce's kid. Over the years, people had confused me, as well as Jason and Tim to be biologically related to Bruce. We all looked freakishly similar to him, and did have the same attitude. All three of us were pretty different, but had one different quality that belonged to Bruce. But this kid, oh he was like a carbon copy.

Damian looked like Bruce. He had the same scowl, and same annoyed demeanour that Bruce carried with pride. They both acted the same. Damian was just as grumpy and irritable. I only met Damian twice before, but as soon as I saw him, I instantly recognized him as Bruce's son. This kid was a _Wayne, _no doubt about it. He just needed to stop threatening to kill people, and everyone would be happy.

Next, in for dinner came Stephanie. We were all half way done our soup, when she decided to make an appearance. She showed up in a really tiny pink tube top, a black mini skirt, black heels, and loads of makeup on. It was definitely different from her usual preppy or batgirl attire.

"Steph, what the hell are you wearing?" asked Babs, being the only one of us that had that power to do so.

"Kitty called, last minute girls night out, I'll be back round one, okay?" she told Bruce.

"Stephanie, it's a family dinner, you're going to stay, it's not like we have these often," Bruce reasoned, knowing that she wasn't going to give into a bat glare, "besides, tomorrow's a school day, you're not going out that late."

"Oh, so I can patrol that late, but you won't let me have a little fun?" she asked obviously pissed. I knew from years of experience, that messing with teenage girls was never good. Artemis, M'Gann, Zatanna, and all of the others on the team at that time. They were scarier than Joker when they were angry, and Bruce seemed to know that, but he replied anyways, "that's right."

"Stephanie," said Barbra giving her a pleading look. Stephanie glared at her, then finally sat down a few seats away from me. The wonder of this table was that it was huge, and could fit 18 people on it, so everyone could sit as far away as they wanted.

She looked down at the food presented and said, "I thought I can't eat this, only health crap," speaking about the restrictions I had given the team on their diets. Okay, so I knew that out of all my ideas, that was the most cruel thing I had done.

One night, Wally called me at 4 in the morning because Bart wanted some 'real food' so ran over to palo Alto to get some from Wally. But, Wally and Artemis weren't giving him the money or food, but he was pretty persistent, so I got _another _death threat from Wally, at 4 in the morning. I let Bart have a couple bags of chips tops, knowing that unlike the rest of the team, his metabolism would eat up the food.

Other than that, these kids got one dessert per week. M'Gann had basically begged me to let them have better food, at least when they were't training. Besides, these kids were the best of the best, a little junk food wouldn't hurt them. But my reasoning wasn't so it would be good for the team. Nope. I had reasons, and they weren't to bore these kids with healthy food.

I knew that over time, that Light would figure out that we were after them. Sadly, that time was a lot closer than the team thought. I had agents in all of their little projects. Artemis was very lucky so far, and she knew it. We all made slip ups, and her's was going to be here soon, we couldn't avoid it forever, so when they found her, they found us. It was as simple as that.

I knew that we had to work fast right now, because if anything happened, then our team was really in trouble. The Light was going to target them, I know that Artemis, M'Gann, Kalder, Connor and I were all going to be left alone. They knew that we're all adults now, and from last time have learned to to underestimate us, so if anything happened, for us, it'll be death. Straight up, death, we wouldn't be the ones in trouble.

The people that will be in a _lot _of trouble will be the kids. Of-course, they _aren't _kids anymore. That's what the Light doesn't understand at this point. They constantly think that if you're not immortal, and haven't been alive for fifty thousand years, you don't have any talent, and underestimate you. That's what they've been doing for the past decade.

Quite frankly, I know that none of us are afraid of death. When you're new on the team or in the fighting business, sure you get a little nervous, and try and protect your life. But, after some time, one of the main reasons you live is for the good of the world. It's the sad truth. Even all the teenagers on the team were ready to give up their lives. But, the real pain was in those who you left behind. Not yourself, and if any member of the team died, everyone would be in dumps, and the Light would have the upper hand.

The problem is that the Light knows, that if we cross paths again, they'll just kill whoever they can get their ands on to send the team into emotional dumps.

So, the main reason I've been forcing the Team to do all these exercises and eat this health like a diabetic, is mostly so if anything happened, they'll be ready for the worse. I keep constant tabs on all of them, to make sure they don't cheat. But, they're all good kids. They don't cheat.

In training, I _want _them to feel dead, and curse me. I'm preparing them for the worse, and the food is so if there's ever a shortage, they know how to survive with only a little bit of fuel. The health part is just so they don't get used to eating as much.

I decided to shake this all off. We had been lucky so far, and I just wanted to enjoy _one _dinner with my family before evil idiots took over the world. Or at least tried.

We were all done soup when Tim was literally dragged in by Alfred. He had headphones on. I knew that Bruce hated it when kids were constantly listening to music, and didn't pay attention to the world around them. It was apparently 'rude'. That must have been the reason Tim had them on. With Tim and Stephanie, it oddly enough seemed like _Damian _was the good kid. That was definitely…wow. Damian wasn't a bad kid. But he was definitely _not _a good kid either.

"Well, I see you finally decided to join us," said Bruce calmly, concentrating on his food.

"More like forced in here," he replied, "Alfred, I thought at least _you _would understand!" he was yelling, but not because he wanted to, but because of the headphones on.

"Take your headphones out!" yelled Damian.

Tim rolled his eyes, "why should I?"

"Because your yelling, and father doesn't like them on."

Tim rolled his eyes again. It seemed like Bruce was getting that a lot lately. But, he took them out.

"Tim, you can stay here, or take your food to your room," Bruce told him which finally got Stephanie's attention, "WAIT! He gets to go to his room, but I was forced to stay down here?"

"Tim sit down," Barbra told him. I just watched all this unfold in silence. Normally, the Bat didn't really care about 'family get togethers' but today, he was actually making an effort, so Babs was going to take his side.

Tim glared at her, "please, you only want me here because _he _wants me here!" he glared at me. Okay, I think I'm safe to say, that I was _not _expecting that. What did this have to do with me?

"Umm, I'm kinda having soup," I said jokingly which got him even more upset.

"Why the hell do you act like that? Huh? Seriously, stop pretending!" he yelled and stomped off upstairs. Probably to try hacking into the Pentagon. Cause that was a Tim thing to do. I also knew this because I may have been looking into his laptop when I was bored last week. He enjoyed trying to get into the Pentagon, it was like a hobby.

"What's up with him?" I asked Barbra and Bruce who just shrugged a bit.

"Tim's been moody lately but he's never said anything about you, so I have no clue," Bruce admitted.

Stephanie scoffed at this, but said nothing and continued eating her chicken.

'Why's he acting like this Stephanie?" asked Bruce, "did he tell you something?"

"Oh please, we don't exactly talk anymore, we may be together all the time, but that doesn't mean he tells me his deepest darkest secrets or crap," she was avoiding the answer, then finally decided to open up a bit, "look, he's been a bit off lately, have none of you noticed?" she looked around at all of us with question marks on our faces.

"We know that Tim's been moody lately, but we all thought- think that it's because of exams, and all the new stress, when Dick was that age, he got so mad, he moved out," pointed out Bruce which got me to roll my eyes.

"Huh, you're oblivious. Think about it. He's been acting off, and injuring any one that comes in his way. He's even been _yelling _at Cassie. When did he ever yell at Cassie?" she said this in a totally neutral voice, but we all knew how much she really cared.

"Did you ever even consider that he's been acting up because of a reason, I mean this is _Tim. _The kid known for having a levelled head. And suddenly, he's acting like some troubled 12 year old, and all of you think it's 'growing pains' but seriously? Is that that the best you could come up with?" everyone looked around guiltily.

"So what does this have to do with me?" I asked, not sure where she was going with this.

She gave me a dirty look and continued, "Ever since you showed up, Bruce, Barbra, Alfred. The've all been running around everything that you say He feels like he's not getting any attention. I mean, I'm not getting any either, but I'm used to it."

"Don't say that!" said Barbra a bit shocked.

"Why not? It's the cold hard truth."

She got up and calmly made her way out of the room. That just left Bruce, Barbra and I staring at each other awkwardly.

"Well, that was an interesting display, I suggest you get back at her for that, but I respect her for being able to yell at you father. That was a change in outcome," Damian spoke up. Truthfully, since he wasn't giving his smart ass comments, I had forgotten he was there. Till now.

"Damian, go to your room," Bruce said irritated. Damian didn't argue, just shook his head and made his way up the stairs.

"Master Bruce, I suggest that you let Master Timothy cool off, and go talk to him tomorrow when both of you are ready," suggested Alfred.

"Well, there's nothing else we can do tonight," Bruce agreed.

We were almost done dinner, so Alfred went ahead to get dessert. But, after that whole outburst, it was pretty awkward to say the least. The three of us had no clue how the Tim felt. We also had no idea what Stephanie thought either. This crap was hard, and I knew that it was also very time wasting, but we were just humans. Super smart, rich and great fighting humans sure, but humans all the same.

"Bruce, I need you to do something with Stephanie," said Barbra snapping us all out of our own thoughts.

"What why?"

"Because, she feels like you're giving her charity letting her live here, she asked me to take over her custody so many times, I've lost count, plus, if Steph's on your side, it'll make Tim easier to clam as well," she responded.

Bruce took a breath, "I don't really think that will work, we both are pretty happy with the agreement we have."

"Um," said Barbra laughing, "not really, she wants to prove herself to you, and I know that if she got a chance to kill Cluemaster to prove it, she would."

"Well, what do you suggest I do?" asked Bruce dryly.

"I think that you should take a day off from work and crime fighting, and take her shopping or something," as Barbra told him this, I flinched and almost spit out the brownie that was melting in my mouth. For a normal person, this was not much of a problem. But none of us were _normal _people. Bruce Wayne was working almost all the time, and Batman even more than that. I was convinced that the only reason he ever went to sleep was because Alfred threatened him if he didn't.

"WHAT?" yelled Bruce, "Barbra, you know I have too much work, and the safety of the city! I can't just stop all my work to take her _shopping_!"

Barbra just rolled her eyes in response. "Oh please, Bruce you're over reacting. Old age has finally gotten to you," she said shaking her head, "you_ will _take Stephanie shopping."

"Or what?" asked Bruce.

Then Alfred came in the room again and said, "or I can guarantee that I will freeze that Bat cave's computers, and not give you any dessert for the rest of the month."

"Ooh, Bruce, you're going to have to take her shopping or get grounded," I joked earning myself three dirty looks, "sorry," I said meekly and got back to the cake, but had my full attention at the argument at hand.

"But _Alfred,_" said Bruce using that winey tone that no-one outside our little family ever heard.

"No buts master Bruce, you will take Mistress Stephanie shopping, and with a smile on your face," said Alfred in a we're-not-continueing-this-arguement tone.

Bruce growled and got up from his seat and headed towards the Bat cave like a teenager would after they found out they couldn't go to a party. But in his case, he was being prohibited from doing work for a whole _afternoon. _

As he left, I couldn't help but laugh. This dinner hadn't gone as planned, but it was the best I had in a long time. I needed the time off, just to listen to people bitch. It was a good time.

"What fun are you getting out of this?" asked Barbra who had wheeled herself away from the table, and was being nice to Alfred so was helping carry dishes back to the kitchen.

"Eh, this was fun," I told her, "I needed it."

She smiled back at me, a little sad. Barbra knew that I wasn't necessarily having the best time in my life lately. But, I was putting up a pretty good act in front of the others, so she was the only person who had actually talked to me about it. I knew that Kyle noticed as well. The Green Lantern and I weren't like best friends. But, we really did rely on each other for these kinds of problems.

I needed to talk them through, but was admittedly too stubborn to do so. He was brutally honest, and someone I knew that wouldn't judge. He was there to help me stay sane. No-one really knew that we were close. No-one even guessed it, but we were friends. In a sense.

"Well, if you need another time like this, we can arrange something," she said smiling warmly. This was Barbra Gordon. My best friend since I was nine. My partner in crime. One of the only people in the world that could read me like a book. We had something once. Until I fucked it up. Then left. And here I am, three years later, when we didn't see each others faces, but acting normal. Like friends. Maybe something more…

She left, but I was still sitting there. It was almost like a trance. When I realized how much I missed her, how much I missed _them. _I may have come back, but seriously, I really knew _nothing _about them. Not anymore. And they accepted it. They accepted me. It was really … nice.

Alfred came back into the room, "Master Richard, I believe you told me there was something you had to tell Master Bruce, so that's why you called this dinner," he said.

I suddenly remembered why I was here. The real reason. "Right, well, come down to the Batcave, and bring everyone down, Including Tim, Stephanie, and Damian, then sprained towards the entrance to the Batcave.

Barbra and Bruce didn't even flinch as I ran in at top speed. I quickly sat at one of the computers and hooked it up to the big screen Bruce had installed lately.

5 long minutes later, Alfred and three grumpy kids made there way down.

"Alright, Dick, tell us what you need to tell us about," said Bruce.

I nodded, and put a picture on the scree.

"Red Hood, and new idiot out on the streets of Gotham, 'ridding it' of the criminals, the easy way," said Tim immediately.

"Who has had an encounter with him?" I asked. The only person who said anything was Stephanie, "I did, he was just shooting some guys, and by the time I got to the scene, he was gone, but I did get a good look at him, why are you asking?"

Wordlessly, I shrunk that picture on half the screen, and put another one beside it. Everyone in the room gasped as they saw who it was. Even the kids who had never officially met were shocked.

"He's dead," said Bruce bluntly.

"Not so much, he was lucky enough to get a once in a life opportunity to have a special bath," I explained, "in the lazarius pit."

"Grandfather," Damian growled.

"So, what, now he's back and killing everyone he thinks should die?" asked Barbra.

"Yeah, basically, that's it," I told her. Everyone stared, still in shock. So, I decided to continue, "he's not contacted anyone yet, only got to Gotham 2 weeks ago, and the resurrection happened about a month ago. He hasn't contacted anyone, but he will, and soon. I'm not sure why he's went on this … killing spree, but knowing Jason, he won't be able to stay away for long. he will contact Bruce and try to rub it in. What's most disturbing is that apparently he's the newest agent for the Light."

**Haha, so another Jason cliffhanger :D Truthfully, at first I wasn't going to add him. But, as usual, I gave into my love for all the Robin's and decided that I wouldn't write the story without him. So, yes, I have figured out his role in the whole thing, and can promise you that he will make an appearance before chapter 20. Haha, I know, I'm only on chapter 10, so it could be in the one after this, or the one after that, or the one after that...**

**So, I'll just put it out there, that I am more of a reader than a writer on FanFiction, and lately, I've not been finding any good stories, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me some good stories. They could be your own, they may be some that you really like. I read just about everything, so don't worry about that either, any good story, I will read. But, please tell me a couple because I have already read a ton of the YJ ones on here. Please, that would really mean a lot to me if you told me any good ones :D Plus, then I'll update faster.**

**And one more thing: Please review. **

**~Empress Pyrus**


	11. Chapter 11

**Alright, well, it's been a while sine I updated, (sorry about that, btw) anyways, this is the chapter before everything starts making sense, so it's really...weird. There is a author, -_who shall not be named- _but they talked me into doing this chapter instead of my usually more serious stuff. Yeah, this is different than what I usually update, it's a house party chapter. I love reading those because they are hilarious, but I suck at that. So this is probably my worst chapter -_-. Anyways, if you want to, you can read it, but the important stuff is at the very bottom, so you can skip there if you want to. **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

Chapter Eleven

3rd POV

Everyone met up at the cave so they could go to the house party that Bart was talking about last time they met up. It was a friday, and with much persuasion, Nightwing had agreed to let them have a little fun. He told hem to have minimal alcohol, mostly because there was going to be training in the morning. They all agreed, but it was pretty obvious that if they got a little booze in their hands, being totally immature teenagers, they wouldn't give a crap about anything and 'savour' the moment.

What was pretty shocking was when Nightwing told them that Bart was in charge. It did make some sense, the fact that it was _his _friend's house they were going to, and the fact that he was the only one there that couldn't get drunk because of his metabolism. It was also made that none of the meta's were allowed their powers at any times. The would all be monitored by a telepathic link M'Gann would set between them, so if anyone did anything stupid, the rest of the team would be there to stop them. No powers were allowed, and they knew, very well, that if they did use any powers, then Nightwing would have their heads.

"Where is everyone?" asked Bart stomping into the kitchen. He came straight into the kitchen, and started going through the food. It was 6:55, which gave them exactly 5 minutes before they were officially considered 'late'. He was usually the one late, but he lived at the cave, and the day at school, his friend Cole had made him promise to come a bit early to help set up. So, at the moment, Bart was just a little tense, because if he didn't show up on time to help, he would have to listen to the whole football team, as well as the basketball and baseball teams complain about how everything went. They just _loved _to annoy Bart. But, they were really cool to him, so it didn't really matter.

In the kitchen, Jamie and Virgil were there, both buried in books. He rolled hie eyes. Jamie was a sophomore and Virgil a freshman in college. So, they were spending a lot more time studying.

Bart raced over and grabbed the books out of their hands, ran into the showers and put them in the change room. He then ran back and grinned, "there is no way that I begged Nightwing to let the whole team to go to a party, so the two of you could mess it up by bringing books." They both scowled, but didn't argue, so he took it as a win.

The next person to enter was Mia. She as usual, had her hair in a low ponytail, but was wearing khaki short-shorts and a yellow tank top. She wasn't carrying any books, so it was great for Bart who wouldn't have to make another trip to the change rooms.

Bart liked Mia. As a friend. She seemed pretty nice, and was a good addition to the team. For one, she was a really good fighter, even though she had only been Speedy for a bit of time. She had really great endurance, and was pretty flexible. Since she was a non-meta, those were both qualities that Bart thought were pretty important.

At times, there was an initial thought that the non-metas were stronger than the metas. There was Nightwing, Tigress, Red Arrow and Oracle as examples from the team. The Bat-family that were legendary, the green-arrow family, and Black Canary. All expert fighters that didn't have powers to reply on, but somehow managed to shine even with all the meta competition. They weren't head strong and didn't get cocky, which was a weakness of most metas. The 'humans' didn't think that they were invincible, which really, none of them were.

Mia, was no different. She wasn't cocky, and quite strong. But also relied a lot on her smarts instead of running into battle with just strength to rely on, which many of the hot heads had a bad habit of doing.

"So, are you gonna get totally drunk?" asked Bart running up to her.

"I hope not," she replied grinning, "I get totally horny when I'm drunk."

"Well, I wouldn't mind watching, or should I say, filming that," he told he taking out his cell phone from his pocket.

"Well, there's no way I'm gonna get drunk, so dream on loser," she said grinning.

"Hey! I'm gonna catch you, and then we'll see who's the loser," Bart replied cockily.

By now, Gar had also arrived in the room. He also went to Happy Harbour High. After years of homeschooling, he was able to convince Zatanna to make him a charm that could change his skin from green to his older version of Caucasian. He didn't know Cole that well, but they had a few senior/junior classes together, and got along pretty well, so he was actually invited as a guest, instead of crashing. But then again, basically the whole school was.

"Well, that only leaves the three arguing musketeers," said Jamie looking around the room. He, like all the others in the room, were getting quite annoyed by the open war going on between Cassie, Stephanie, and Tim.

"What's with them anyways?" asked Mia reminding them that she was new.

"Well, what basically happened was that Cassie and Tim dated, took a break, Tim met Steph who was already pregnant, they fought, Tim and Cassie got back together, Steph came back, and now they all want to kill each other," Virgil told her.

"Wow, tough story."

"Yeah."

And then, as if on cue, Stephanie stomped in the room. She looked pissed, and growled as she joined everyone. Right behind her, there were voices of yelling.

"What the hell! You really need to learn some manners!" came Cassie's voice.

"Yeah, cause you're little miss perfect, quit pretending that you were actually going to wait or something," came Tim's annoyed reply.

The team looked at each other, all trying not to smirk at their behaviour. It was really annoying, and quite distracting, but also pretty funny when they acted like children. It was weird that for people who were so head strong, and some the the smartest as well as physically strongest teenagers in the world, that they still fought within each other like little children.

As they entered the room, still yelling, Stephanie found her opportunity, "LISTEN UP! We're already late, and it's because of you, can you two stop your personal fighting for a second?"

The two growled at her, and it reminded Jamie a lot like Wolf when he didn't get any of their dinner.

"Woah, guys we don't have time for this!" he said stepping in-between them.

"Yeah, anyways, M'Gann wanted me to go over the rules again," said Bart handing them all bracelets. "These bracelets will make sure you don't have too much alcohol."

"Dude!" said Virgil looking at the bracelet that had attached itself to his skin, "what the hell?"

"Right…" Bart said, "haha, well, it's gonna attach itself to you guys so you can't take it off, the only person that can do that is M'Gann," they all glared at him because all of them had it on.

"Anyways, this will basically send like brain waves to me explaining how much alcohol you guys have had. It will be like a reminder for me to stop you before you get too drunk, and if I can't get to you, I can just think about electrocuting you, and it will happen," he told them mischievously.

They all stared in horror, thinking that their fate lied in the hands of an over excited speedster.

"Well, we're all fucked," Jamie commented.

"Oh yeah, and none of that either, no fucking strangers, and we all need to be at the cave by three latest to get at least a little bit of sleep because Nightwing informed me that we have training early in the morning," Bart told them, getting a couple of disappointed faces. What could be said? They were teenagers who wanted to get laid, or have a little fun for once in their lives instead of living will the worries of the world on their shoulders. The only person who could live with that was Batman. But he was … Batman.

"Alright, but lets go before he tells us we'll all have to sit next to each other and hold hands," said Cassie flying out. But right as they were all about to leave, Tim grabbed Bart's shoulder.

"Will M'Gann know how much we've drunk?" he asked speaking about the bracelets.

"Nah, I'll have full control," Bart replied.

"Okay, so you're running low on cash right?" asked Tim grinning. Bart gave him a weir look and asked, "Where the hell are you going with this?"

"Let me have as much as I want, I have a hundred dollar bill with your name on it."

Bart raised an eyebrow. Tim didn't break rules. Out of all 5 Robin's he was the good one. The careful one.

"You do know that we have training in the morning right?"

"I'm a quick healer, c'mon Bart, I don't have any powers, so I can't do anything that bad, and when I go over the top, just get a baby sitter or something," he pleaded.

Bark knew that M'Gann was going to be pissed. Really pissed, but he did need the cash. So, he finally relented, "alright, but one wrong move, and I'm cutting you loose, and dragging your butt to M'Gann, plus facing Nightwing's wrath in training."

"Deal," Tim grinned and they left to join the others at the 7 seater SUV the team had gotten as a gift from the League last year. The of them ended up getting totally squished, but it was alright for the short ride.

The only bad thing was that Bart had managed to get into the drivers seat first. He was just getting his G1, and couldn't drive without an adult, so got Jamie to sit next to him. Everyone in the car clutched the seats and each other as he started to drive. 'Slowly.'

By the time they arrived, it felt like travelling to Mars in a mini air shuttle. It was freakin _revolting. _They should never, ever let a speedster drive.

"Remind me never to let you drive again!" commented Garfield running out the car, trying not to puke.

"What, guys c'mon, guys, it wasn't _that _fast," Bart crossed his arms childishly and pouted.

"Yeah, Bart you're right," said Jamie gaining incredulous looks, "it was pretty normal for a HIGHWAY in GERMANY!"

Before Bart could retaliate, there was a yell from the house. This was the first time the Team actually got to look at the house. Well, it was a mansion, and pretty impressive. Not Wayne Manor impressive, but impressive all the same. There was already old music blaring from the house, even though it was only 7, and no-one was really there. Except for some jock guy who was wearing the black and yellow varsity jacket of the Happy Harbor Hornets. It was actually pretty funny in those colours, but the team managed not to laugh when Bart shot them all a dirty look.

"Dude, everyone's going to get here soon, and the place except for the music isn't set up!" the guy yelled and Bart dragged the team into the house, and they were all given different jobs without even _knowing _the guy who's house it was. But the guy was right. As soon as it was a bit darker, people showed up. Tons of people. An hour and a half later, the whole house was packing, and the team had all gotten separated into smaller groups.

Jamie and Virgil were caught in a small group of people at the side, who instead of dancing, were playing Spin the Bottle, and 7 Minutes in Heaven. It was really fun, and since both of them were in college, they got instant liking. These games were for middle school kids, but were fun to bring up for college students as well. To remember their wasted days.

It was pretty funny how people had just invited them over when they found out both were graduated. They even had fun playing with random girls they had never seen before. That was the beauty of it.

While they were getting tons of attention, as soon as it was 10, Bart got what felt like a brain blast telling him that Stephanie and Mia were down. He had to leave his group of friends to go and find them.

Cole's house was pretty big, and he wasn't able to use super speed, so it took a while in tracking them. Both girls were actually at the back of the house, and were laying dangerously close to the pool. By laying, he meant passed out. _How the hell were they able to pass out this fast? _He thought as he started dragging both girls away.

In the process, Mia woke up and ran to puke by the plants. But Stephanie was totally out cold. He checked their bracelets, which told him that in the time it took finding them, they almost had double the amount in their systems as they should have.

But, in the process of waking Stephanie up, he got another blain blast telling him Garfield was also down. _Aaaarrrrrrr, _he thought running to find Gar. Unlike the girls, if he was to late this time, Gar would turn into some weirdly huge animal, so he had to catch him before he did anything stupid. He lightly electrocuted Gar, hopefully sending the message that he was on the way.

It didn't take long to find Garfield. He was dancing, with some girl. It was a bit gross seeing everyone totally drunk around you, but being totally sober. It was annoying.

"Sorry Lexi," Bart said dragging Gar away from her before he totally passed out.

"Duuuddddeeee," came Gar's voice, "I totally had her!" he pointed.

"Garfield, you're drunk, and I can't leave you there to blow the whole secret, cause it'll blow all of our cover, you know, as super heroes and stuff."

"Ohhhhh, yeah, I remember … can we go to swimming?"

"What?" asked Bart looking at him weirdly.

"I wanna go swimming," said Gar trying to get up, but still swaying.

As he was about to tell Gar he was crazy, another brain blast hit him. This time, it was Tim. Even though they had made a deal, that Bart wouldn't interfere with Tim, he would still have to watch him, so he didn't do anything _too _stupid.

"Gar, stay here, and if you drink anymore, I'll tell M'Gann that it was you who 'borrowed' the cash from her.

"YOU WOULDN'T!"

"Try me," Bart grinned, then sped off to find Tim.

It took a while, but he finally found Tim. But he wasn't alone. Tim was at the back of the living room, trying to avoid all the people dancing, but he was with some girl he thought he recognized from school, making out with her. For normal guys, that was fine, but Tim had 2 girls who were fighting each other, and _him _so they could be with him, and here was Tim, getting drunk at a party and forgetting about them. As well as the fact that the girls were both _here. _

He rushed over to try and stop Tim, but before he could move any further, a hand stopped him on his shoulder. He looked back to see that Cassie was standing behind me smiling slightly. But she didn't look happy. It was a sad smile; that made his heart break. It was hilarious really, he was trying to get my best friend to fess up for either one of the girls that would probably die to keep him safe, yet here he was, drunk off the charts, making out with a stranger not giving a crap about those he affected.

Looking at Cassie, Bart realized that she was totally sober. He quickly remembered how M'Gann taught him to think 'graph' and magically almost, would get a graph appear in his head showing him exactly how much all of these idiots drank. He relaxed, then concentrated and a perfect graph appeared that looked like it was made on excel.

"Cassie, you don't drink?" Bart asked confused. He knew for a fact that everything at Cole's parties was spiked. Everything always was, so that meant she was purposely trying to stay sober.

"You don't know that?" she asked with an amused expression. Bart just shook my head, lost. But when he though about it, she never seemed to be there when we were totally getting wasted, or doing something totally dumb. It was funny, but since he was usually stuck on babysitting duty, and the others were, well, drunk, no-one ever realized that she wasn't there.

"Huh, well, what _have_ you been doing then?" he asked hoping she wasn't bored.

"Eh, I was talking to the kids from you school before the brownies came along," she said smiling.

"That's lame," Bart laughed, "you know? That's totally lame, that they totally mess up brownies like in every movie out there. So overrated."

She just shrugged, "well, that doesn't really stop them, never does."

They talked for a bit more. It was really the only thing to do. Bart was waiting for Jamie and Virgil to screw up so he would have to find them, and Cassie just really didn't have anything else to do. At a party. She didn't have anything to do.

"So, Cassie, what do you normally do at these kinds of parties?" asked Bart finally asking for some kind of explanation.

"Well, I'm usually stuck with your job cause my friends know I don't drink, so I'm the designated driver," she shrugged. He was about to respond until they heard a mix of yells from the other side of the room.

They weren't exactly like yells and screams they heard at most crime scenes for help. These were of pleasure. Girly pleasure. Which by no doubt was a surprise. They both made their way over to where the screams came from.

There, it was clear to Bart why both Jamie and Virgil were pretty sober. Well, to the most part. Since both were older, they weren't the type to hang out with high school kids, but Cole's older brother was Jamie's age in college, and a ton of his friends were also there. So, both oped to stay with the older people. There was a game of spin the bottle going on as well as a game of 7 minutes in heaven. And guess who was in the centre of attention?

Bart groaned. Controlling these two would be tough. Even though neither would get drunk, because they hadn't yet, that still wouldn't change their desire to get laid. Since both were single, and in college. It was obvious from the beginning, that their time would be spent in trying to get anything fun.

Bart remembered Wally telling Bart about when Dick was their age, it was the only thing on his mind. What was funny was that at the same time, he was also the leader of the team, and Bart was more worried about the fate of the world to think that all the time, their leader had the time to get laid.

"Cassie," whispered Bart, "go get Jamie, and I'll get Virgil. Make sure he does nothing stupid, trust me, these guys are _not _fun when they're drunk."

She nodded and they both headed towards the boys to try and pry them away from the group before damage was done. The problem was that these two were conscious, so it would take actual work and convincing. But, they were both powerful meta's that needed to be controlled as well. As Bart dragged away a pissed Virgil, he remembered that he had totally left Garfield, Stephanie, Tim, and Mia. Alright, that was going to cause a couple of problems.

"Virgil, you're a bit drunk, go and find Cassie and Jamie," Bart told him trying to make an understanding argument. But it was late, he was drunk, and it was exam season. To top everything off, Dick was being a total pain in the ass, so it was easier to just complain, and not listen to Bart. So that's what Virgil did.

"Dude, I wanna go back," he insisted.

"Look, I have 6 of you bastard's to babysit, and thankfully, Cassie was smart enough to help me, but 4 idiots have passed around somewhere around here, and I need to find them before either one of them gets themselves killed, or reveal out powers," Bart ranted, now tired, as well as irritated.

Virgil was really looking like a pissed 10 year old. Bart remembered that he wasn't totally _sane _at the moment. He didn't argue, but just stomped his foot, causing all of the lights in the room to turn on. Then, a second later, they turned back on.

Bart shot him a warning look, and turned to get to the backyard where he left the others. But _of-course, _in the way, was Cole who was also drunk off his ass. Bart was glad that he lived in a totally isolated mansion, and his parents were cool with parties. Yes, his parents wanted him to have parties because at least this way they'd know when everything was going to happen instead of having a total surprise. Bart loved their parenting.

"DUDE, you have to play 'I Never' with us!" came his voice which sounded very off…

"Sorry Cole, I have friends to look for, by the way, I have to get home soon."

"No! You've gotta stay! The party's just starting!" Before he realized it, Cole had pushed him into the group so they could play I Never. Bart already knew the perks of being the only sober person playing. He got to watch as people poured their hearts out or do something incredibly stupid. Either way, it was a gain position. Plus, when it's you're turn, you just told crap stories. It didn't make much of a difference.

They played, and the music kept blasting. It was loud, and fast. Before he knew it, Bart felt drunk. But he didn't _drink _anything. It was more like the adrenaline that was catching up to him. His body wasn't even the least bit concerned about anything at the moment. M'Gann and Dick could go in hell for he cared, but he wanted to enjoy himself for a little bit. he other's got to, why couldn't he have a little fun?

As time passed, he felt like his body wasn't his anymore. They had started playing strip poker a while ago, so there were clothes strewn around, and no-one was really keeping track of who was winning. Even now, there was that loud music he _adored, _and basically the whole school still there. Some people still had tons of energy left.

Bart watched as slowly, people one by one passed out every where. He felt certain that some girl had fell into the plants in his house, and people were all in closets as well as bathrooms. Who he didn't see though was any of his teammates. But he was okay with that.

He played until it was 2:30, until there was finally a familiar ace from his team. Cassie was there, and she pulled him up. No-one in the room really noticed her tough, even though she was using her strength. Everyone was either not conscious, or too self involved at the moment.

"What are you doing here?" she asked calmly.

"Cole…Never Have I Ever…force," he told her, "water."

She quickly understood that he was totally wiped, and wasn't eating anything. There wasn't anything but alcohol everywhere, so he wasn't going to drink that at the possibility of wiping out at this moment. The food was messed up as well, and getting a high Bart would be pretty messed up. She ran to the kitchen where she got him water from the tap. As the water slowly filled to the top, he was next to her.

He took less than half the time in drinking it all, and suddenly old Bart was back. "We need to go, M'Gann is totally going to cream us!"

She agreed, "alright, well, the others feel a little messed up, but the whole hungover stage should be over soon, the only person missing is Tim, so Bats was told that he won't be home tonight. He really didn't seem to mind that much."

They both made there way to the group at the back. From there, they all climbed in the car and Bart started driving. Sadly, they all had forgotten how much of a totally ass hole idea _that _was.

"What the fuck are you doing?" asked Mia from the back as she feel onto Gar as they turned sharply.

"I'm driving you bastards home, you better keep you mouth shut back there!" Bart yelled back. He kept this up for a while, until finally a cop car started blaring. He groaned and pulled over. The cop took his sweet time getting to them. Bart was tired, hungry, and sick of babysitting the team.

The first thing that cop asked was, "are you kids drunk?"

"If I was drunk, do you think I'd stop for you?" asked Bart unlike his normally nice demeanour.

The cop rolled his eyes and said, "well, I need to test you, and see your drivers licence. Bart cursed under his breath and took it out. Then he stepped out of the car to do their tests.

By the time they were finally cleared with just a speeding ticket, it was 3:30. M'Gann was going to have their heads. Ignoring the ticket he just got, Bart sped the rest of the way back. Thankfully, they ended up back at the cave without any other tickets and in one piece.

When they walked back, they expected M'Gann waiting for them, but were surprised at what they saw. Zatanna was bringing coffee to everyone, Dick, Barbra and Kyle were all on the holo computers typing something, Ollie was standing at the side talking in hushed tones with Wally, Raquel and Donna, and Connor and Kalder were both MIA. But the weirdest thing was that Dinah and Artemis were both sitting on sides of Roy who looked like he was…crying?

"Roy?" asked Mia immediately. At that, everyone looked at them then quickly went back to what they were doing.

Then, the zeta tube went off, "_Recognized: Batman 02"_

"What the hell is going on?" asked Stephanie, as they all watched Batman go straight to Dick and wordlessly start typing.

Roy was the one to finally answer, "they got Jade," which everyone knew who he was taking about. The Light. But apparently he wasn't done.

"And Lian."

**Well, I have to admit, that came out pretty awkward. If you did read that, please, feel free to comment to make me feel better about my pathetic writing. Oh! and stay tuned for the next chapter, when things start to actually happen!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Well, I'm late...again...sorry about that. BUT, school's finally over, so I'll be updating more often! :D Anyways, this is the chapter where things start to actually happen, but it's really short. Tons of explaining and stuff.**

**Disclaimer: I ****don't own Young Justice, DCU, or any other brands I may have mentioned in the story. **

Chapter Twelve

3rd POV

"What the hell?" was the first response that came from teenagers. They were all staring at Roy, who was being comforted by Donna at moment. Most of the room were in civvies, except for the Bat, who hadn't moved from the position he was in half an hour ago. He was going through basically ever piece of evidence he could find. Bruce Wayne wasn't concerned about Jade and Lian, which was his cold personality, but Dick needed help doing the research, so he had been called in.

Everyone was silent. They had gotten here about 45 minutes ago, but when they arrived, Dinah and Ollie had to leave for a mission, and Dick had called all the older members to follow him. Donna, Zatanna and Raquel decided to stay with Roy though. He needed as much support as he could get, even though he was trying his best to push everyone away.

"What are we doing _here_?" asked Mia getting up. She was looking quite mad, "We need to go search for them!"

"No," came Dick's response as he came back into the room everyone was in. But, the surprise was with him, Kalder and Connor followed. Everyone gasped. No-one had seen them for 2 weeks. Seeing them now was pretty surprising, not to mention pretty weird. They were wearing these big black armour things, that looked like Black Manta's uniform, but weren't.

Mia, however didn't seem to care that they were there, "Why not? Look, I know that Jade can take care of herself, but LIAN? She's _4_. We need to find her, before…" but she didn't finish her sentence. She was new, she hadn't been on many missions with them, yet, she had the guts to yell at Dick. That was pretty tough, because he was _really _intimidating. Not like Batman, but more like 'I'm stronger than you even if you have the whole team's powers put together'. He was a living legend, but when someone wanted something, they forgot about that detail.

"Mia, I know how you feel, but we can't search for them because they have been _found_," he told her. Again, gasps went around the room. Suddenly, Kyle entered the room with Barbra, he was carrying some big metal boxes with his ring. He was changed into uniform. He dropped the boxes on the floor, and they landed with a loud '_THUD_'! The box had radioactive signs on it.

Then, they heard the zeta tube power up, and M'Gann, Artemis, and Wally came into the room with similar looking smaller boxes. Wordlessly, all of them went over to the island, and placed the boxes were put on them. They were all silent.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Bart, who like the other speedsters, was impatient as hell. He was tapping his foot very quickly, and it looked like it was going to ware the floor. Kyle levitated him up with his ring, to stop it from becoming into a hole.

"Yeah, I have to agree with armano', over here," said Jamie stuffing his hands in his pocket.

Sighing, Dick walked out of the kitchen, and into the meeting room. The others followed him, but Wally, and Barbra stayed behind, with the mysterious boxes. The huge group got to the room, where Dick said, "I think this would be better if I explained it in the Watchtower," so they all started zetaing up.

Finally, when the whole group was up, they went into the meeting room and all of them took their seats, except for Dick who went up and typed something into the holographic keyboard. Moments later, there was a large screen up, but was turned black.

"Alright, so I know you have many questions, and-" he started.

"Dick, maybe I should explain this," said Artemis going up to him, "you seem tired." He nodded in agreement, and took his seat.

"You all know that Jade and Lian are missing, and Kalder and Connor just got back from a mission that took two weeks, but what I'm guessing you don't know, is that both incidents are connected. For most of you anyways," she said looking towards Tim who had on a Pokerface. "Before Dick came back, he had gotten in touch with my sister," she stared explaining. The room was silent in shock. It wasn't Dick's style to go ask for an ex-assain's help.

"He went to her to help him do some work, and see if his suspicions were right. She was the best option for many reasons. She has connections, she can get in without suspicion, and she is really helpful when getting paid. Her connections to the League with me and Roy helped as well. So, she was working undercover. During this time, Connor and Kalder had gotten different appearances to go and see how things were going on her side. They were helping her, and they were making sure that nothing wrong happened." Everyone knew that something _had _went wrong. That's why they now had a 4 year old captive.

"Make no mistake, the Light doesn't know she was working with us. Ever since the Reach, she stopped working for Talia Al' Ghul, so she went into Intergang. Of course, the Light knew this, and they think that she is delivering very little information to them. They know that she will work for who gives her the better deal, but, the Shadows want back one of their best agents, especially since Spotsmaster and Deathstroke have teamed up, and are a potential threat against the Light. The villain community is seriously starting to doubt the Light, so getting back Cheshire was really helpful to them. But, to get her to fess up, they will dose Lian with the serum. Little do they know, Kalder and Connor had already knew this was going to happen, so we dosed Lian with the cure, which at this point, is risky. She should be fine for 2 days, but after that, they will try and kill or torture her the old fashioned way."

The room went silent, but Artemis didn't flinch. It was a scary thought that they would torture Lian. She was just 4, and a really innocent kid. Her parents were messed up, but both were good and deserved to see their daughter grow up and live a life.

"So, where is she staying, exactly?" finally Garfield asked, seeing that no-one else was going to.

Artemis sighed, but finally responded, "Ras' Al Ghul's castle." The room went silent once again. This was going to be tough, but definitely doable. They had done harder, much harder.

"For this mission, my squad will be leading," Connor spoke up, "Jamie, Kyle, and Cassie, Beta should be good for this."

"Shouldn't Gamma do this?" asked Static, "I mean, we do better with the whole stealth project thing."

"No," replied M'Gann, "The light knows that we will get Lian back, so they will take tons of security measures, that's why the hard hitters are going, because we need strength for once, but Gamma will be there for back-up."

"That's right," Artemis responded, "Alpha, Kalder, Tim, Bart, Mia, I have a different mission for you."

Everyone nodded, and followed their team leaders, although Mia did seem like she wanted to go with Beta. She was close to Lian, and would risk her life without doubt to save the kid. Probably everyone in the room would. Lian was adorable, she was young, and she was so … innocent and pure. She was really just a little four year old girl that had her whole life in front of her.

The team, they had made decisions, good and bad. They had done things, bad things that were necessary with the job. Even thug, most of them were young, they all had to grow up quickly. It was 'a part of the job' as the older hero's put it. They couldn't quit, and quite frankly, didn't _want _to, but it was refreshing seeing someone so young and innocent again.

Beta made their way to that zeta tube, but surprisingly, but instead of going to Mount Justice, Connor put in the coordinates for Hall of Justice. Before anyone could ask why they were going there, they arrived.

"Why are we here?" asked Jamie looking around, confused.

"Batman needed the Watchtower," Connor replied, but it didn't really clear things up.

"Why not the cave?" asked Kyle folding his arms.

"We have to meet someone here," replied Connor walking into the meeting room. There, they found Zatanna, Donna, and Raquel waiting for them. Zatanna looked like she was meditating, while Donna and Raquel looked through some of the many files lying around in the room. They looked really concentrated, so Donna only looked up when Kyle said her name in shock.

"Connor, mind explaining to us what's going on?" asked Cassie looking at the others.

"They will be helping us on the mission," then he looked at the girls and asked, "how was Roy?"

"Eh, we talked to him, and now he seems to be in some sort of revenge mood, so Donna cuffed him to the wall, and Zee put a protection spell on him," Raquel explained.

Everyone looked at Zatanna and Donna who just shrugged, "well, he may be my best friend, but I _had _to cuff him, he seemed like Dick when he gets pissy…" Donna trailed off.

"Don't worry," Zatanna explained, "only my life is really in danger here, but there's no way he's escaping, the spell I put on him makes him invisible and no-one can hear him, he'll be in there for as long as it will take for us to get Lian back."

Connor nodded, "Well, we better get started."

**Well, believe it or not, that's the great chapter 12 I've been telling you to wait for. It's mostly a build up for the next 6 chapters that are going to have tons of action. So, keep reading!**

**Please be a good person and leave a one word review at least :)**

**Thanks!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hi everyone! IMPORTANT: Well, let me start off with the bad news. I'm going on a 'vacation' for a month and a half, where there will be no wifi. Yes, EmpressPyrus will have to live without wifi for that long {nooooooooooooooooooo} But, that also sadly means that I won't be updating for a wile :( {noooooooooooooooo [again]} Yes, I know, I know, that totally sucks, but if you're a fan of my story, then please understand that it will be 12 times harder for me than it will be for you. Here's the good news: even though there will be no wifi, I will be writing the whole time, and coming up with new ideas out of desperation, so as soon as I get back, BHAM! You'll get updates A LOT! **

**btw, I hope you like this chapter even though it isn't that important :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of the brands I may have mentioned within the context. **

Chapter Thirteen

3rd POV

Alpha followed Kalder, as they zetaed back to the Cave. Some a bit more grudgingly than others, but they all quietly followed him, still unsure to what he had been doing for the past two weeks. They were in the dark about what was going on, not sure why they weren't breaking into Ras's castle to help rescue Lian. But, they still followed, silently to see what they were going to be doing.

"So, Kalder, you and Connor were…undercover?" asked Bart rushing next to him.

"Not exactly…" came the short reply. They wanted to know more, but he obviously wasn't going to spill.

"Why don't you just tell us?" Bart asked again, now confused as to what he could be hiding.

"Don't you get it Bart?" came Tim's venomous voice, "_They _don't trust us with this information, _they _aren't going to be telling 'kids' anytime soon."

Kalder was calm, and didn't look the least bit disturbed by the outburst, but Bart didn't seem satisfied. He wanted answers, and wasn't going to be giving up anytime he was about to ask another question, Mia the last member of Alpha shot him a venomous glare, which instantly got him to shut up. What was it with female archers? They were really scary…well, Roy was pretty scary as well, but Ollie was cool. He was the only one that wasn't totally scary and a professional at glaring.

They all walked to the hall where all the rooms were located, and Kalder abruptly stopped in from of Zatanna's old room. Tim, Mia and Bart glanced each other questioningly. But, before anyone had a chance ask what they were doing in front of the magician's ex-room, the door opened, revealing Black Canary.

"Come in guys!" she said brightly ushering them in.

"Thanks for doing this Dinah," Kalder told her. Everyone looked around the room. There were racks of clothes and makeup. They were all starting to understand what was going on, and didn't like it at all.

"_We _are the ones doing an undercover mission, aren't we?" asked Bart, realizing that they were in the magician's old room because of the huge makeup table she had moved in here the year before leaving to the League, and left it there as a reminder of her.

"You're quite right," Kalder told them.

"Dick told me that you will be going to a party, and who was better to do it than Alpha?" said Black Canary teasing them. None of the team really liked undercover missions, and this one was going to be in a party. This was usually for M'Gann, or Zatanna, or even Stephanie , mostly because the three of them liked dressing up and stuff, this was NOT a job for Bart, Tim and Mia. But sadly, at the moment, everyone else was busy with their own jobs.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Tim, hoping that it wouldn't be _extremely _boring.

"Lex Luthor is is holding a banquet, that will take place tonight. Now, I know that all of you are sleep deprived, and you will need _all _your energy for tonight, so I want all you you to be back here by noon, then you will be debriefed, and," he paused for a second to look at the makeup, "get your makeover."

Groaning, they left the room, just realizing how sore their bodies were. It was four in the morning, and they had been at a party most of the night, and got back to find this extreme pandemonium going on here. They were pretty sure that Beta and Gamma weren't going to be blessed with the 7 hours of sleep. They had 48 hours to try and break into a highly guarded castle owned by a very smart maniac.

Instead of going to their own separate room, all three went to the living room, where the huge couches were lying. Without realizing much, each fell onto a seat, knowing that this way, they would wake up in time. And one by one, they all became too tired to worry about Lian, or the mission, or anything in general. For each of them, everything went completely black.

* * *

"Aahhhhhh!" screamed Mia at the top of her lungs, getting up. Pain seeped through her skull as she yelled, but stiil recognized that she was in no major danger. Then suddenly all the pain was gone. She touched her hair, to see that all of it was there, and none of it was ripped out. Then, she glared at Bart who was smirking just a little bit.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" she yelled. He didn't flinch.

"Well, you weren't waking up, so I decided that the best way to get the job done, was to jeopardize your hair," he explained cheekily as to why he had been pulling Mia's hair, "you girls really love your hair don't you?"

"I was SCREAMING because that REALLY hurts!" she yelled at him again.

"Stop flirting, and grab something to eat, it's almost noon," came Tim's voice who both forgot were there. He was standing behind them, in the kitchen with a slice of last night's pizza in his hands.

Bart rushed over to the fridge and started rummaging through it and replied, "that wasn't flirting, that was fighting, are you feeling okay dude?"

"Yeah," Mia agreed, "he was PULLING my hair, if you consider that flirting, I _really _feel bad for Cass and Steph."

"You two are teaming up against me," Tim said matter-of factly, "that's a form of flirting."

Mia rolled her eyes while bart replied, "not all of us _fight_ for attraction, we're teaming you against you as _friends, _to another friend."

Before their little argument could go any further, the P.A. system went off, "_Alpha, please report to your meeting room._" Each grabbed whatever food was closest to them and ran towards Zatanna's room.

Inside the room, Dinah was back, and with her was the whole huge makeover stuff, "Alright," she said, "find a different place to sit in here, I'm going to try and make all of you look like rich billionaires within 6 hours, and Kalder will be getting here soon to tell you what you are doing." They didn't question her, and took their seats, Mia on the makeup desk chair, Tim on the bed and Bart on her desk chair.

Silently, they all worked, pretty confused to what they were doing, but went along with it anyways. About half an hour later, when they hadn't gotten any progress, Kalder finally walked in.

"Mind explaining to us why BC's trying to make me look like a barbie?" asked Mia pushing away a pink skirt that Dinah had been trying to forge onto her.

"Well, I'm sorry to say this Mia, but you will have to dress up tonight," Kalder responded. Both Tim and Bart's mouths flew open.

"What the hell?" asked Tim.

"Dude!" yelled Bart, "There is no way in hell I'm gonna go on a mission with a angry OR upset Mia!"

"Sorry Bart, but you guys will all have to deal with it, besides, this an important mission," Kalder told them, finally fulling out a blueprint on the holographic screen. The two boys scowled, but they didn't say anymore.

"This evening, there will be party held at LexCorp for the new opening for his bio-tech centre. So far, he's been focusing more on the engineered weaponry for war sort of thingthing, so the bio tech centre was a surprise. But, he told the public he had been looking to 'expand' the LexCorp franchise. The date for the opening was set months ago, so when we planned this, we made sure that Lian's kidnapping was going to happen now out of all times. This way, a lot of the overall security would be at the mansion, and there would be a bit less at the party. This also made sure that there were not going to be Light guests. They are all going to be at Ras's mansion."

"This is wrong." One little sentence and the room was looking at Bart. He didn't look like he was joking, or having fun, but he looked serious. As well as mad. He glared at Kalder, both Tim as well as Mia tried to look away. "You guys have been planning this for _months_?"

"Yes, Bart, we have prepared a bit ahead of schedule," Kalder replied calmly.

"So, you guys knew that Lian, a 4 year old would get kidnapped. What's worst, is that she is your _best friend's_ daughter and now the team may not be able to get to her because the whole Light is guarding the place!"

"Bart, the team _will _get her back. Tonight."

"How the hell can you be so damn sure? Huh? Last time we faced these cico's, Wally _died_. Dick _left. _We all put up a brave face for _months, _but none of us were really right. Now, you come back and tell us that a kid got purposely kidnapped, so we could get into LexCorp for a weasley mission."

"Bart, it was a team vote," Kalder replied.

He scoffed, "_No _it wasn't. It was a senior vote, the rest of us got no say. You're acting like the Justice League, keeping all these secrets. We are a TEAM, but ever since this mission started, it's been like a dictatorship!"

Kalder seemed confused. Truth be told, they were used to the other members getting mad, and pissed, and ready to choke the life out of someone, but not Bart. This was a good kid, that was excitable, but wanted peace. He was the type of hero that did everything according to the rules, and didn't complain about it. Most heroes, they were good _hero's, _but not good _people. _That was the thing with Bart. He tried his very best to be a good _person. _Just like Wally had.

That was probably the reason no-one said anything. They all sat there silently. Bart rubbed his temple, thinking everything through. He obviously didn't want to be here, _that _much was obvious, but he couldn't leave either.

"You can give the briefing to me later," he finally said running out the room. The four left stared at the door for a second, then decided to leave him. There was no way they were going to catch him, so they let him run.

Kalder took a breath, then continued, "I understand they you guys are upset that we haven't been completely honest with you lately, but we can't tell everyone the plan. If the Light was to find out what is going on, with that knowledge, you will all be in more danger."

"Kalder," Tim said, surprisingly not yelling at him, "we're ready to take those chances. That's what we signed up for."

"I'll talk to the others, but until then, we really need to get on with this planning," Kalder said and the other two nodded, "Alright, so the objective of this mission will be to try and find out what's gonna happen next. We need to be able to understand everything, because quite frankly, this expansion isn't really going to gain him money, but Lex Luthor has a reason behind everything. Sadly, in formal documents, we can't really find different objectives that are not written in hard text to show the public."

Both of them looked at him, wanting him to move forward with this, "you need to go to this party, and ask around. Find out what is really going on, and every specific detail you can find. I will need one of you to go in and try to get some info from the hard drive from his main computer, while the other two find out as much as possible."

This was pretty accomplishing. Lex Luthor was one of the most paranoid villains out there, and it was going to be tough, but they could handle it. Hopefully.

"Here are the passes that are going to get you in, and here is the biography of the person you will be playing, their name, how they act, who they talk to, ect. I will be talking with you the whole time, so there is no need to worry about anything, so, now I'll go and let BC give you the makeovers, and we'll be leaving by Bioship at 6 to Metropolis."

Kalder left the room, and the kids sat through it, and got a different look.

Kalder zetaed to the Watchtower, where he was going to find Wally and Barbra. But, before he was able to go into the room, he heard Bart talking.

"Wally, you have to understand, these guys are going nuts, if this continues for any longer, then we'll all be in big trouble. They seriously got Lian _kidnapped _on purpose! Babs, you **have **to understand!"

"Bart, I know how you feel," came Barbra's voice, "but, the two of us can't really do anything. I don't like Dick's method's, but if they work, it's all we've got."

"I have to agree with her on this on," Wally said.

"You two _can't _be serious! You do realize that if we keep this up, we're going to be as bad as the villains? Right now, 4 year olds are getting kidnapped, tomorrow, it will be alright for innocent lives to die during missions. We can't lose our morals!"

"Don't worry Bart, you have to realize that desperate times call for desperate measures," Barbra pleaded. She didn't want to argue with him. It wouldn't do good for anyone.

"Don't you see? We _aren't _desperate! For once, we have the advantage!"

"Yes, and we want to keep it that way!" she yelled back.

"Wally, you can't really be buying this crap! I mean, last time, things got WAY out of hand. I should know out of all people. We can't risk innocent lives for this!"

"No matter how much I disagree with Dick's method's, we can't stop now. There is a plan in place, and it's gone underway. Now, we can't really do anything except hope that everything will be alright."

"In reality, _everything _has consequences. Remember that," Bart spat and ran out the room. Out the door, he saw Kalder, gave a glare, and ran to the zeta tube.

No matter what they wanted to believe, everyone knew that what Bart said was true. There _were _consequences, there was death, there was torture. Everything could happen, and hoping wasn't going to prevent it from happening. The world gave no freebies, it _never _owed you anything. No matter how hard your life had been, expecting something from the Universe was the stupid move.

It was so true, it was scary.

**Hope you liked it!**

**I came up with another advantage for my um...hiatus...when I was proof-reading: It will give you tons of time to REVIEW!**

**Please? Review? **

**See you in August!**


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